The Widow's Future
by Iresol
Summary: Part Two of the Widow's Torment, Andromache's saga continues, written by Tamlin.
1. Chapter 1

1.

I hurt.

My head hurt. My back hurt. The bones in my hands hurt.

My teeth hurt.

I didn't make any noise. I wanted to. But I was the wife of great Hector of Ilium. And... I was afraid it would hurt more if I made a noise...

Someone didn't agree with me. I heard a groan next behind me. The sound of a body moving, but not well or for long. I opened my eyes and for a very long time saw nothing at all. It was not that there was nothing in front of me. Just that - what was in front of me didn't make its way past my eyes to lodge in my mind.

I was cold. And laying on something hard. Stones from the feel of it. My cheek was wet and so was my shoulder. My hair hurt where it met my scalp. Something smelled horrible, like rot and sour wine. Water was dripping from something nearby.

"Shit." A man's voice. Behind me still. At the same ground level I was at. Something prodded my shoulder. "Andy?"

I knew that voice. My eyes blinked and the dingy alleyway I was in began to take shape in front of me. 'Sandorsun'. 'Hoot'.

My baby -

I sat up with a gasp that quickly turned into a muffled whimper. My hands were still tied at the wrist but I raised them and cupped my face in my fingers. Trying to push the two sides of my head back together since they were obviously splitting apart. My eyes and nose were watering and I rubbed at them, blinking as I tried to look around.

I had never seen such a place before...

The alleyway was narrow and there was some kind of stone on the ground of it. Tall, dingy looking buildings rose up close on either side with closed doorways. There was painting on the walls, scrawled words and crude pictures. Water dripped from a drain spout. There were strange square boxes the size of a small horse stall near some of the closed doors and trash piled in forgotten heaps wherever there was a corner to shelter it. Overhead the sky was dirty and at the beginning of the alley that was not blocked off by another wall I could see people passing dressed in strange clothes. Blurs of color, moving too fast for me to understand passed sometimes too on the other side of the walking people.

"Andy. I need you to untie me." I pulled my wide eyes away from the mouth of the alley and looked down. To see 'sandorsun' looking up at me. And he did not look well. Not well at all. Everything else lost its importance next to that.

"Yes" I reached for my knife and than remembered it was gone. Looked around the alley instead until I found a broken bottle. Feeling weak and a little sick to my stomach, I still managed to get to my feet and hobble over to retrieve it. Who would believe the shambling creature in front of them had once been a princess of the greatest city to every rule the Dardanelles? 'Sandorsun' shifted as I came back and I knelt down behind him and carefully sawed at the ropes until they were frayed enough that he could pull them apart. He rolled onto his back and than started coughing. Setting down the bottle, I put my hands under him and rolled him back onto his side. He spit and it was a great gob of blood. Afterward he lay still. Panting. I sat very still, supporting him. Trying to breath myself. Working very hard on not looking at the opening in the alley that let out into a world I did not recognize. 'Sandorsun's' hand finally moved and he checked his hips. Exhaled through his teeth.

"I haven't got my cell, Andy. We've got to find a way for me to call my base."

I looked blankly at him. Concentrating very hard on his words even if I did not understand all of them. Because my chest was starting to close up. My lungs felt as if they were slowly turning to stone and I was having a hard time breathing. There were strange noises in the air, coming from the mouth of the alley. Loud noises I did not recognize. And I thought, if I were to turn and look, somehow the alley would have grown smaller since I looked last and brought all that horrible, strange 'out there' sneaking up close behind me.

"What should I do?" I asked, face very pale. Trying hard to pretend I was brave. It was my trick. I was not a brave woman. I was a woman that did what must be done when the time came. But that did not mean I was brave. I had never been brave. Only borrowed it from my husband when he did not know it so that I could pretend I was. 'Sandorsun's' very blue eyes met mine and his face was very grey.

"I need you to find someone. And bring them back here. So I can tell them what to do."

I wanted to shudder as I knelt next to him. And I wanted to tell him 'no'. Instead I positioned the broken glass between my knees and calmly cut my wrists free. My son was out there. Somewhere. For he was not in this alley and I had to believe that he was somewhere I could still reach him. Somehow I stood up, though my knees were so weak I was surprised when I found myself upright. My mouth was dry.

I had come to my husband young. He had driven his chariot out to meet me and I had ridden with him back into his city. And I remembered how it had been with all of those people crowding the streets to see me. Their one day future queen. I had wanted nothing more than to crawl down and hide behind Hector's shield for the ride. But I had not. I had stood tall and pretended I was proud and noble and brave and I had endured the gaze of judgmental strangers for the entire depth of the city. Gathering the hem of my dress now I stepped around the puddles and without looking back, I made my way to that horrible opening with its gaudy dressed strangers and its rushing colored boxes of noise with its dirty air and painful fumes.

Not because I was brave. Because it needed to be done.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

I sat in the cold room and tried to find something to do with my hands.

It was easier to rotate between tucking my hands into the sleeves of my dress and than withdrawing them to rub the fabric of my skirt between my thumbs. To link my thin, scrapped fingers together in my lap and than unwind them and rub at the raw knuckles. Easier to concentrate on that than all I had just seen.

I didn't understand the language these people spoke. 'Sandorsun' seemed to and he spoke it as well. But I think anyone would have followed a bruised, battered woman with pleading eyes. Several of them had followed me back to 'sandorsun' and he'd spoken to them. Several of them had gone back out into the street and some had stayed. And everyone had tried to give me reassuring looks while I had knelt back down at his side. I had simply tried not to notice the strange, flat stones they'd held to their ears to screech into excitedly. More people had come, people in white uniforms and they had put 'sandorsun' on some kind of bed with wheels. I had not touched him but I had refused to be parted from him. Even when they loaded him into a strange white wagon of sorts without horses. He was my only link in this world. He was all I had to lead me to my son.

And I was terrified of this world I found myself in now.

There had been the feeling of movement though it had been - wrong somehow. And than we had been brought into this huge white palace. 'Sandorsun' had told me everything would be all right but it was hardly as if I believed him. The people taking care of him, healers of some sort I guessed, had had very drawn faces when they looked at him and their voices had been calm and tight when they talked.

They'd taken him away and put me in this room.

It was white too. I thought I might go mad if I saw too much more of this color. It had a bed and a chair and a window I refused to look out of. There was a small room as well with a seat full of water and a basin that was not. I sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

A woman had come in and tried to touch me. I had swatted her away when my head shakes were not convincing enough but she had persisted. She'd pointed to my torn wrists and the marks that must have been on my face and tried to sound reasonable and reassuring. I did not want a stranger touching me. I wanted my son and I wanted to go home. To my place and my people. I had finally had to resort to physical violence with the woman before she would leave and I did not think either of us would ever be friendly to each other by that point in the episode.

Now I sat on the edge of the bed and waited. For what I was not sure. Trying to find something to do with my hands.

At least it was quieter here.

Finally there was a soft tapping on the open door. I looked up and saw a man. He reminded me of 'hoot' and 'sandorsun'. I looked at him and he looked at me. Finally he cleared his throat.

"Your name's Andy?" he asked. And it was all I could do not to weep. For I actually understood him when he spoke. Mute, I nodded. Willing to accept any name at this point. He nodded back and came into the room, sitting down on the edge of the seat. I watched him carefully.

"Look" he began. "I'm not sure what the hell is going on. Jeff's had the shit kicked out of him, Hoot's AWOL, and I've been told that I'm not supposed to ask you anything. Just make sure you get on the chopper they're sending for Sanderson."

Mute I continued to watch him. Not understanding all of what he'd said even though I knew he'd spoken in my own language. I had the very distinct impression that if he was not supposed to ask me anything than I should not volunteer it either. But -

"What is 'a-wall'?" I carefully asked. 'Hoot' had my son.

The stranger's eyebrows went up.

"AWOL. Absent without leave" he volunteered. "Not that his leave's up yet but he's sure missing. Wouldn't be the first time either" he muttered and it was more to himself than to inform me. I should have felt panic but all I felt was - nothing. As if a great emptiness had opened up inside me and all that was left was a ringing silence and - nothing. My son...

"Look" the strange man stood up. "I've got to go see about getting my hands on some transport. And I've got doctors to wrestle with over Sanderson too. Stay put and I'll be back as soon as I get things running."

"How is 'sandorson'?" I asked and he turned back from his exit to look at me. Watching me. He knew that I knew what had happened and he also knew he'd been told not to ask me. I do not think I would have told him even if he had.

"He's not good" he offered. "But he'll live." His eyes could not decide if they should be angry at me or thankful. I offered him nothing to decide it and he turned and left. I sat on the bed. Time passed.

My son was missing.

'Hoot' was missing.

I found little hope in that.

I wondered if 'hoot's' god would hear me if I prayed.

The stranger appeared again. Knocking on the open door. He looked tired. I felt tired.

"Come on" he stated. "I'm getting you out of here."

"I want to see 'sandorsun'" I told him and he opened his mouth to protest. Whatever he saw on my face stopped him. I did not intend to leave my last link to my child on a foreigner's word. The man nodded and so I stood and followed him while he walked down the hall.

We passed through many halls. I tried not to see what was in them. Nothing here made sense to me. And I was growing to hate the smell of this place. Finally I heard a voice that I recognized. But whatever he said made no sense.

"No hay nada malo conmigo. No hagas que te dane."

"Sounds like Jeff's getting snotty. Must be feeling better" my escort muttered and rapped on the open door with his knuckles before stepping inside. I followed him. There were several people in the room but I only recognized one. It was enough.

'Sandorsun' still looked terrible. There were bruises forming on his lean face and his skin was pale under its tan. His eyes had somehow become even more blue than before. But he was sitting up in his bed and when he saw me he exhaled.

"Thank God" he muttered and held out his hand. I went over to him immediately even if I did not take his hand in mine. I did not know anyone else in this room. Not even the man that had brought me here. I did not know this world. 'Sandorson' was all I had that was vaguely familiar and I clung to him even if I did not do it physically.

"Did you get pilots that are going to turn a blind eye?" he asked and the stranger that had brought me to him nodded. Eyes full of the questions he would not ask. The other people in the room, healers I think, looked disgruntled. 'Sandorsun' looked at me.

"We're going to fly. In a cart like the one that brought us here. It's going to take us to my home. I'm going to take you with me. Hoot's my roommate. He'll go there as soon as he can. He'll have your son, Andy."

My inhale was silent but it shivered all the way through me. I wanted to believe him. I needed to believe him. I felt as if I were dangling off the edge of a very tall building, holding on by only my finger nails. If the wind even blew wrong I was going to lose my grip and fall. And if I fell I suspected it would be into madness. The only thing that was keeping me from curling up in a corner and covering my head and screaming was that I was not done yet. My son was still lost. Until I found him I could not spare emotion for myself.

One of the healers spoke to 'Sandorsun' than and he scowled.

"All right" he growled. "I'll take the damn wheelchair." 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

I sat very still in my chair.

Below me the world was too small and passing too quickly. I was trying very hard not to realize it. The knuckles of my hands were starting to hurt I had my fists clenched so tightly.

Men were not meant to fly. And certainly not this way. Loud and cold and too fast. I closed my eyes and tried to think of something else. But not even the memory of my husband would come to grant me reprieve from the horror that was sealed tight around my heart and throat. It was all intrusive and left me no place for myself in my own head.

But I would not break.

Next to me 'sandorsun' had a map spread out across his thighs. It was a map of the world he told me. But it was no world I recognized. The Greece he pointed to meant nothing to me. Even pointing out Troy had meant nothing to me. A part of me knew - those places were not the places I would recognize as my home. When metal boxes moved without horses and lifted into the sky - there was nothing in this world I would recognize. My husband's ashes in their ornamental urn hidden in their lost cave on Mount Ida were very far from me now.

I understood that 'sandorsun' was trying to distract me. Trying to give me something to think about. But this was a nightmare to me and there was only one point of light or hope in it. One point of life that drew me ahead so that I would endure and continue. I could not bear anything else right now and even my ever curious mind had shut down everything that was unnecessary.

I needed my son.

The contraption we were in sank alarmingly and my hands tightened even more on the edges of my seat but I made no noise. If I died, I died. I would not go to my husband screaming or a coward. I did not know how I would face him if I had lost our son though. My boy. My precious little one...

'Sandorsun' lifted his head with a grunt and looked out the glass of the window.

"We're here" he told me and I nodded mutely. "Andy - " I looked at him, face a mask of tight skin and wide dark eyes. "Let me do the talking" he told me and his hand hovered over mine but did not touch me. "I'll get us home. It's quiet there."

I wondered how he would know it was the noise that hurt the most. But again I only nodded. His fate had been in my hands once. I hoped he was not so careless with mine now as I had been with his. But there was nothing I could do to change it. Only endure and continue.

There was a bump underneath me and my breath hitched. But almost immediately, 'sandorsun's' hand was undoing the bindings that had held me to the seat and his hand was on my arm. I let him and went silently as he slide us both out of the metal box and onto the ground again. He still didn't look well but he looked better than he had in the alley and I concentrated on keeping up with him and not looking around. He was talking, rapidly. A great deal I did not understand even though it was at least a familiar language. I found myself in another of the boxes and it screamed. Things passed by the window too rapidly. Another man was sitting in the box in front of us and his eyes were full of questions he too did not ask as he glanced back at us. I noticed that. The people 'sandorsun' seemed to know did not ask the questions that were in their eyes. And 'sandorsun' did not offer answers. Yet they all worked together without hesitation.

"Remember" 'sandorsun' stated as the box stopped in front of a horrid looking dull building. "I'm not here. And you let me know as soon as we get a head's on Hoot."

"Right" the other man responded. Looked back over his shoulders and his eyes lingered on me before shifting to the man next to me. "You owe me."

'Sandorsun' grinned.

"Call that jailbreak when you broke your foot in Panama payment and I figure we're even."

The other man shook his head and chuckled.

"You've been hanging around Hoot too long."

'Sandorsun' helped me out of the metal beast and it made that Hades' driven noise again and ran away. I looked up at the building in front of us. That looked just like the building next to it. That looked just like the building next to that one.

Had it been less than a fortnight ago that I had been concerned about going into the woods with a strange man? And now I was in another place and helplessly dependent on one that was taking me to his home.

"It's upstairs" 'sandorsun' told me, voice gentle. "It's quiet. -er. It's quieter."

I nodded and, gathering up my skirt's hem, started up the wooden stairs. 'Sandorsun' came close behind me and I walked until he reached past me at the last door. He was breathing uncomfortably but he leaned down and lifted away a brick from the edge of the porch and took out a small, odd key that he fit into the door. He entered first and I followed close behind. Suddenly eager to be inside and away from the strange world that crowded so close outside. 'Sandorsun' jerked to a sudden stop in front of me and I, not paying attention, automatically sidestepped him.

There was a living area and doors to the side but I saw none of that. All I saw was the small table. 'Hoot's' dark eyes. And my son jumping out of his chair with a dirty face and wide smile to run into my opening arms.

And suddenly, I was home.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

Hoot watched Andy hold Meander as if she would never let him go. And he thought he'd never seen a woman's face look more beautiful. Jeff was staring at him. One of those stares he always got when he'd managed to pull something off without getting killed. Sadly, it was hardly the first time.

His friend didn't look good. He looked like he was about ready to fall over in fact.

"I saved you some hot water" Hoot drawled without getting up from his chair. Dark eyes meeting the blue of Jeff's. And Jeff's face finally relaxed. His lips twitched upward. Everything was going to be okay.

"Better have" he answered and Hoot started to grin.

"Saved you some KFC too" Hoot added. "Meander ate up all the gravy and biscuits though. Its not Popey's but its the best these Germans can do."

Jeff chuckled.

"Redneck."

"That's Cracker to you, Yank" Hoot's accent went on thick and slow and than he offered his hand. Jeff took it solidly in his own and that was enough. It was everything.

"You better not have dumped your crap on my bed" Jeff warned and Hoot chuckled.

"Shut up and go take your shower before I change my mind about that hot water."

"Rain check on the hot water. I'm going to sleep instead" Jeff answered. Than he looked back at Andy. Still on her knees with her son held tightly against her. Silent tears on her cheeks. He looked back at Hoot. Hoot nodded and than waited until Jeff went into the bedroom and shut the door before he stood up. Andy's dark eyes opened and rose to find him as he approached. And the look in them...

"Thank you - " her voice was broken. She looked frail. She hadn't even looked fragile when she'd been facing down that Greek general. But she looked fragile now. She was shaking too even though Hoot was willing to bet she didn't even realize it. Meander turned his round little face to look up at Hoot with a content smile, safe back in his momma's arms.

"ah, darlin'" Hoot gave in to his gut and knelt down to scoop both Andy and her son close in his arms. She didn't resist. Just melted willingly against him and after a minute the tears came again. Little Meander snuggled close and just shut his eyes contentedly. Hoot held them both against him and shut his own eyes as well.

He'd never realized what frantic felt like. But when he'd slammed back into the present day and realized that, even though he had the kid, his best friend and Andy were still back in that bad situation and there was nothing he could do to help... he'd understood what frantic felt like. What helpless frantic felt like.

Not a pleasant feeling at all.

He'd waited as long as he had figured he could but he'd had the kid. Priority was the need that was immediate and dealable. Not the two that were beyond his reach. Though God probably hadn't heard him pray like that possibly ever before.

I held onto my son. And I held on to 'hoot'. And it was all I could manage for a very long time. Astyanax nestled close and it was as if a great part of me had been missing and was now returned. 'Hoot's' arms around me shifted after a while and he lifted me, with my son in my arms, and carried me to the couch. Settling me down with my back against the arm of it.

"I'm gonna go get the first aid kit, darlin'. You just stay put an' let me take care of you."

I lifted my face and blinked past my hot eyes as he let go of me and rose. Feeling suddenly very small and very alone without his body against mine. I should have felt guilty for that but I didn't have any energy. All that was left of me was concentrated on holding my son close. And in waiting for 'hoot'.

He came back to me and settled on the cushion next to my feet, setting down a white box and several bottles. Than he took one of my bare feet in his hands. Had it only been a few days ago that he had first done that to me? It felt like a lifetime and I scooted so that my thighs were pressed against my son's back and I could be closer to 'hoot'. His dark eyes shifted sideways and found mine as I peered at him over the top of my son's head.

"It's all right, Andy" his voice was soothing and gentle. "You're safe now. Nothin's gonna hurt you or Meander. A'ight?"

It made my lips, pressed against my son's forehead, curve slightly despite myself.

"Ah-ight" I mimicked and saw the grin break across his face. Quick. Like a little boy's. He chuckled.

"That's my girl" he approved. And than, while I tried to decide how that declaration made me feel, he went back to my feet. Barely healed from my first trek down the side of Mount Ida, re-bruised and torn from my second as a captive. Covered with whatever I had walked over in this new world and cold with the contact from so many foreign surfaces under them, my feet had ached for so long that I had forgotten them. Now, large hands capable, 'hoot' gently washed them, cleaned them and bandaged them. He took his time and I wondered if his touches were not as much to sooth me as they were to heal me. I did not protest. I was far past the point where I could manage that. When he was satisfied with his work, he gently set my feet to the side and opened up one of his arms.

"Come 'ere" he instructed and, awkward, I settled against his side. Astyanax scooted so that he was rested against both of us. Sheltered. And I did feel pain than. For did he even remember his own father's touch and the tender way Hector of the flashing helm had once held his tiny body in battle scared arms and laughed with him? Once prayed to heartless gods with faith that his son would become greater than he was and a joy to me?

"I need your arms, darlin'" 'hoot' told me and I hesitated even that little release of my son. 'Hoot' waited patiently and I finally shifted so that I could hold my child close with one arm and offer 'hoot' my other. His touch was gentle as he went to work on the rope burns and bruises on my wrist and the torn skin on my hand and fingers. Astyanax and I both watched him in silent curiousity. Than he let me switch arms around my son and he began the same process on the other. His face was calm and his dark brows were low over his eyes as he worked. The bruises on his face were fading. Waiting for a moment when he let go of my hand to reach for the strange sticky bandages he wrapped around my scraped knuckles, I reached up and gently touched one of the discolored marks on his cheek.

"How long had you been here?" I asked, mind starting to become suspicious of an idea.

"About six days in the present, countin' today" he answered. "Meander and I waited in Madrid a coupla days and than I got us some wheels and we came back here. I figured Jeff would head this way no matter where or when he showed up. I go back on call tomorrow and there's a woman that lives on base I trust enough if I got called away to watch the kid for me."

Quiet I nodded thoughtfully.

"I left Beans keepin' an eye out for you or Jeff in Spain but I couldn't leave Meander with him."

"Beans is the short one with the blond hair that points skyward?" I asked, remembering the man from the infirmary that had helped 'sandorsun' and I. 'Hoot' nodded.

"Yep" he answered with another chuckle, catching my hand in his again so that he could apply the sticky bandages. "That's him. He works at the embassy there."

I nodded, vaguely understanding. 'Hoot' finished with my arms and than he worked on my face. Checked my head. I sat still while he moved his hands over my back and shoulders. It was too familiar a move on his part despite the fact he was checking for damage but I again could not bring myself to protest it. Or even to lie and tell myself that I did not find pleasure in the feel of his hands on me. Finally he prodded my ribs and asked about my hip and legs. When I had satisfied him that I was not badly damaged he put everything back in its place in the box and again he lifted both my son and I in his arms.

"Come on" he told me, voice low. "I know you're hungry but you look about ready to fall over. I'm gonna put you both to bed first. You can eat when you wake up."

I nodded against him. Far past the point where I would protest. He carried me into the room 'sandorsun' had gone into earlier and I was vaguely aware of dimness and some strange low thrumming hum. My son, curled in my arms, against 'hoot's' chest, sighed out contentedly and closed his dark eyes. Smiling. Gentle 'hoot' set us both down in what felt like a bed. The last thing I remember was the feel of him gently drawing a blanket over me as my son curled close against my chest. And than sleep took me and for a very long time I was its unresisting prisoner.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5:

Hoot was on the phone when the door to the bedroom cracked open and Andy looked out. Her eyes were a little large and looked surprised.

"How do you get the water to come back?" she asked and since he was on hold, Hoot wrinkled his eyebrows at her.

"In the seat full of water" she explained, coming out of the room with Meander looking proud and confident next to her. "I push the handle and the water leaves but than it fills again. No matter how many times I push the handle. Why doesn't the small bowl behind the seat get empty?"

He blinked and than it made sense. The toilet! And she'd apparently taken it apart. He chuckled. He'd had to show Meander how to use that thing and he guessed the boy had shown his mother. Clever kid. He wondered how many times they'd flushed it before they'd gotten bored.

"That's a toilet" he explained, listening with half an ear to the muzac on the line. "Pipes bring the water up through the walls with a pump. When the water flushes out, it activates the pump and pushes more water up to fill things again."

Andy looked thoughtful and he could see her mind clicking away behind her dark eyes as she translated what he'd said into terms that made sense to her. Meander bounced over and crawled up into Hoot's lap. Hoot had to thank God that in the time they'd been away from his momma the kid hadn't decided to blame Hoot for her being missing. Had to thank God that the kid had already trusted him before that or it could have been a lot worse. As it was the kid had taken his mother's loss better than Hoot had. Patiently waiting for her to show back up. Hoot handed Meander the phone and the little boy put it to his ear.

"What is that?" Andy asked and he got the idea that was going to become a familiar phrase in the upcoming weeks. He didn't mind.

"That's a phone. Its how we talk to people that are a long distance away."

She made a humming noise as she sat down at the table next to him. Her head tipped ever so slightly to the side and than she asked:

"Than why aren't you talking?"

Hoot coughed his laugh. Not having been expecting that question.

"I ask myself the same thing. I'm waiting for a friend to come back to it and tell me what he's got."

Meander, who had been humming, chirped suddenly and Hoot took the phone back.

"Okay" the voice on the other end stated. Ignoring the odd sound he thought Hoot had just made. Almost as if he was used to ignoring a lot of odd things Hoot did. "I can do this for you, bud. It's going to take a while but I think I've got enough info to start." There was a pause. "You're sure this isn't illegal?"

"As illegal as hell" Hoot answered with a drawl. "But its for a good purpose. Thanks, Doug. I owe you one, man."

The voice on the other line chuckled.

"Always" Doug responded. "I'll let you know when I've got something."

Hoot shut the cell phone and handed it back to Meander. Who immediately opened it. But hey - it was Jeff's anyway so Hoot wasn't worried about any accidental calls showing up on his bill. Andy was watching him. Silent and thoughtful. He liked thoughtful. He could handle thoughtful. He worried when she wasn't being curious.

"What do I do now?" she asked quietly and Hoot gave a half smile. Practical. He liked practical. And he admired her for not pretending nothing strange was happening too. He lifted Meander off his lap while the kid chirped into the phone and offered Andy his hands. She took them slowly but without hesitation.

"Right now, I'm gonna show you how the shower works. An' while you're indulgin' I'm gonna make you and Meander some breakfast. Than I'll patch you up again and after that I'll tell you what I'm thinkin' about you stayin' here."

Her face was very solemn. But he caught the hint in her dark eyes seconds before she intoned:

"Ah-ight."

I decided I had found Elysium. My husband was not here, nor my friends and lost family. But there was hot water pouring down over my head and the chill I had carried in my bones since before I had arrived in this place was finally gone. 'Hoot' had showed me soap and another bottle of liquid soap for my hair. It reminded me of the oils I had used in Ilium. And the smell of it was pleasant. We had something like these showers in Troy, an idea passed down from the Minoans. My husband had appreciated the efficiency of them. But I had not enjoyed them so much, preferring my bath and hot water even my husband had complained of the temperature of. But the water that came from this pipe was very hot indeed and 'hoot' had told me there was as much as I could want. It also did not simply fall but rather pounded down and it felt very good against my stiff shoulder and bruised muscles. I had forgotten just how much I loved hot water in the years of our exile and I washed my hair several times just to enjoy the feel of being able to. Finally, despite his declarations, the hot water began to go tepid but I forgave 'hoot'. I would have forgiven him almost anything for this blessing of truly hot water for myself. I turned it off the way he had showed me and stepped out of the shower into the small bathing room. The air was full of steam which felt good when I inhaled it and I used the towels he had left behind for me. My son had been banished from the room after flushing the toilet and making the water go cold while he laughed uproariously. I hoped he had not bothered 'sandorsun' who had been sleeping again.

This was a very strange world I found myself in. Picking up the comb that was amoung the items 'hoot' had told me were mine, I began to brush my hair and was surprised to find how easily the teeth of the brush slid through it. I was not sure I liked the world outside this small set of rooms. But I was beginning to love the world inside it. My son was here. 'Hoot' was here. Even 'sandorsun' was here and a comfort. The strange contraptions seemed magical but so far 'hoot' had explained them in ways that made sense to me. I understood pipes and running water. There had been springs outside of Ilium and I understood water pressure. My son of course had already adapted to all the strange things. Already used to everything being new, as a child he had not compunctions about what was new in this world as opposed to what was new in our own.

Dry with my hair combed and braided, I put on the dress 'hoot' had found for me. It was really just a long piece of cloth but I was well versed in garments like that and simply wrapped it so that it overlapped in front and than tied it behind my neck. It was a bit shorter than I was used to but not as short as the peplos I had worn in my youth. My own dress was ragged and dirty and I wondered if I would ever manage to get it clean again. It seemed very important to me that I do however. I had nothing else left of my own world. I had folded it but I left it on the sink and let myself silently out into the bedroom that 'hoot' and 'sandorsun' and now my son and I all shared. With only two beds, and his sick friend sleeping on one of them, I wondered where 'hoot' would sleep when nightfall came.

I did not know if I would suddenly find myself back in my own world eventually.

I did not know if I wanted to.

I somehow did not think the choice would be mine to make however.

'Hoot' was in the kitchen and my son was perched on a counter next to him when I exited the bedroom. And - I thought perhaps it would not be such a bad thing if my son stayed in this world. I did not know anything about it but I knew that here there was no one who would hunt him because of his father. And that there was no city demanding to be rebuilt despite what it would cost him.

I do not know if I had ever forgiven Troy for what it had cost my husband. What it had, in the end, cost my son and I.

'Hoot' gave me another of his quick, lazy grins as he heard me come out and my son called me over by extending his hands and wiggling his fingers while calling:

"mumma"

I didn't resist and immediately lifted him into my arms. 'Hoot' was doing something with eggs and a pan and though I saw no fire I could see that they were cooking.

"No fingers" my son solemnly intoned, pointing at the circular grillwork under the pan with the eggs and I nodded. 'Hoot's' brows went up in surprise at my son but he didn't comment. Astyanax could talk. He just rarely did and than usually only to me.

"You're lookin' better" 'Hoot' told me and my smile could not help but quietly answer his.

"I feel better" I told him. I watched his eyes change.

"Go on and sit down" his voice was softer and warmer. "Breakfast's almost ready."

We did not talk during the meal. I had not realized how hungry I was until my first mouthful. Astyanax ate quite a bit too but I still felt like a barbarian with the amount of food I put down. 'Hoot' did not comment on it though. Instead simply making sure my plate was always full and my cup was never empty. He ate too and there was something very comforting about sitting with him and eating. When I could finally eat no more and Astyanax was showing signs of playing with his food instead of eating it I tried to clear the table. 'Hoot' told me to sit still however and he did the work instead.

I had never had a man that was not a servant wait on me before.

I watched him very closely. To see how things were done so that I would know for next time. When he was all done and everything was in its place again he disappeared into the bedroom and came out again with the white box. He let Astyanax carry it and took my hands to lead me to the couch again. There I was again inspected, especially now that I was wearing a dress that exposed some of my more colorful bruises and than he let Astyanax help him while he again cleaned and bandaged me. I realized I had been waiting for this. For his touch on me again. For his hands on me again. It was wrong of me but when he opened his arm for me again, I went willingly and pressed close against his side while he drew me there.

Gentle he pressed a kiss to my temple and it warmed me and made me feel safe and comforted and cared for. Astyanax found his spot again and snuggled in against both of us. I closed my eyes and it was enough for me.

"I've got a friend" his voice was low and I did not open my eyes as he spoke. "He's in the CIA. That's one of the groups in my government that does quiet things most people aren't supposed to know about." I nodded. Understanding. Ilium had had its share of spies. And assassins. I had had my share of spies. But I never sent someone else to do my killing. "He's going to get you papers. So that if anyone asks, we can say you're from this time. He's going to get some for Meander too. Sanderson helped me with the information for you and the kid. Once we've got those papers for you two you can do all kinds of things like get a passport so you can travel to different countries. Meander can go to school. You won't have to worry about anyone bothering you about where you belong."

I nodded against him again. The future seemed very far away and hard to take seriously. I could find myself back in my own place and time tomorrow. Or I could find myself living the rest of my life here. I was glad 'hoot' was taking charge of things because I not only would not have known how but I would have had a hard time motivating myself to in the first place. For now it was enough for me that I was here and we were all safe. Beyond that I saw very little.

Hoot had to go out. They needed food and he had to check in. And cover for Jeff. The brass didn't care what Deltas did in their off time. As long as it didn't interfere with their job when they came back. They'd already agreed that Jeff had had a 'car accident'. Delta code for when they'd done something stupid and sustained injuries that would keep them off the active roster. As bad as it was, Hoot was glad Jeff was off active duty for another reason too. It meant he felt safe leaving Andy behind if he got called away on a mission.

So he spent most of the morning doing his check ins and touching base. And shopping. He hated shopping. Necessary evil in this case though. He parked his bike and shut off its engine and than unloaded the things he'd bought. Arms full of bags, he went back upstairs and let himself in the door. To find Sanderson on the couch with Andy sitting next to him and Meander in her lap. All three of them watching the TV with unblinking eyes.

"'ey" Jeff managed. He was leaned forward. Andy was pressed as far back against the couch back as possible. Hoot's eyebrows started to come down. He wouldn't say she looked horrified...

"What- " he began and was immediately shushed violently. One of Andy's long, pale hands stretched out for him and, for the offer of that hand alone, he joined her on the couch, sitting on the arm of it.

"Madilyn is about to tell Sam the baby is actually Jack's" she whispered the plot to him and Hoot, glancing at the television, started to laugh.

"You're fuc - you're jokin" he laughed.

Teary eyed the actress on the TV pause while the dramatic music swelled - and the show went to commercial. Jeff sat back with a grin while Andy blinked in surprise at the 'mop that wasn't a mop, it was a Swiffer!' ad.

"This is how you educate her?" Hoot asked his roommate and Jeff laughed.

"What?" he asked innocently. "She wanted to know what I did in my spare time."

"Nutcase" Hoot muttered. "Andy - " he started but she interrupted, turning her full attention on him.

"How do they make the pictures inside the box move? And where are the actors if they are not in the box? Where do the stories go when the box goes dark? Why is there always a story going on no matter what time it is? Why do they call them 'soap' operas?"

She asked them rapid fire, as if she'd forget if she didn't get them all out. She had also unconsciously reached out and curled one of her hands across his thigh as he sat on the arm of the couch. As if she thought she'd lose his attention if she didn't touch him. Hoot wasn't a newbie when it came to women. But the feel of her long fingers, nails curved against the denim of his jeans, had his full attention. Innocent gesture but that didn't stop it effecting his system in the slightest.

"uh" he managed, going for intelligence.

"They used to advertise soap on the shows for all the women that stayed home and took care of the house. Back when the idea of moving pictures on TVs first got started. Opera is form of play that's all about drama and misunderstandings. So - 'soap operas'." Sanderson came to the rescue with at least one of the answers. Andy nodded, eyes dark and assimilating, but it was obvious that was the least of her questions. Hoot gestured and Sanderson, in an anti-male moment, actually handed over the remote. Hoot hit the mute button.

"Darlin', I'm takin' you to the library first chance I get" Hoot told her and the smile that spread across her face brightened everything about her and around her.

"Really?" she asked in delight. And her fingers curved unconsciously against his leg. Hoot told himself he was a grown man, a Delta for God's sake. Not some teenage kid out with his first girl. Didn't seem to help. But he didn't make any move to get her to shift her hand off his thigh either.

"Sure" he smiled back. How could a man not in the face of her joy? "This close to base they must have a decent English section." He didn't know how she spoke English anymore than he knew how he and Jeff had spoken ancient Greek. But he suspected if she could speak it, she could read it. And there were too many things he just simply took for granted in the modern world to be able to explain to her. So the way he saw it, it was either a library or the internet and neither he nor Jeff were around often enough to bother with owning a computer, much less getting internet hook up.

"What's in the bags?" Jeff asked and Hoot nudged them with his foot where he'd dropped them all on the floor.

"You gotta take Andy and Meander shopping" he told the blond man and Sanderson's eyebrow rose. The woman in question had leaned over and was going curiously through the plastic bags, as fascinated by the plastic as what was in the bags themselves. Her hand had left his leg in the process. Hoot wondered how he could get her to put it back there.

"You're hopeless" Jeff mocked him and Hoot shrugged.

"Look, you're the one good with the girly things" Hoot explained. "And Andy and Meander need clothes and - stuff."

"You've got sisters too" Jeff pointed out, settling back on the couch as he stole the remote back. "Didn't you ever go shopping with them?"

"Not once I was old enough to gnaw my own leg off and make a run for it" Hoot pointed out. To say the fact their upbringing had been dramatically different would have been an understatement. Jeff chuckled.

"You just don't want to take her bra shopping" he clarified and Hoot grinned back at him. Hoot liked to leave the female mystery a mystery. But there was a much better reason for him not being the one walking the woman on the couch next to him into a lingerie shop. Had something to do with the fact he was trying to be a gentleman.

"What is this?" Andy's face was puzzled and her forehead wrinkled as she lifted out a shirt in orange and green that was her son's size.

"Ninja Turtle" Hoot provided. Shot a look at Sanderson's reaction. "What? The Germans really like them!"


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6:

He woke up.

I had not meant to wake him, I began to think it but even as I did, I knew I was only lying to myself.

I heard 'hoot's' quiet inhale in the darkness and even before he moved I knew that I had woken him. I should have known. Soldiers did not sleep well when someone was watching them.

My husband had always been the same. It had made it very hard to indulge myself watching him sleep.

'Hoot' shifted now on the couch. Rolling from lying on his stomach to his side, propping an elbow under him. The blanket he'd gone to sleep with was lying on the floor next to him, long abandoned, but even half awake, he was still holding the pillow possessively in the crook of one arm.

He was not wearing a shirt.

"Andy?" his voice was low, quiet in the darkness of the night. Silent, I moved quickly over to him and sat down on the floor. Pressed against the couch as I looked at his face in the dim, strange light that snuck in through the curtains. My pale hands curved nervously around the edge of the cushion.

"Baby, what's goin' on?" his voice was still thick with sleep. It was pleasant to hear. It made me feel better.

"If I go" I swallowed, skin feeling tight across my face. "If I am taken back - will you raise my son as your own?"

He went very quiet than but I felt him suddenly come completely awake as if it were daylight and I could actually see it. I waited in the dark silence, feeling small. And powerless. 'Hoot' shifted finally, reaching past me to scoop the blanket off the floor.

"Come 'ere" he offered, shifting his body to the side to make room on the narrow couch. Shameless tramp, I did not resist his lure. Slipping instead onto the couch and pressing against him. His arm shifted and I felt the blanket settle over both of us before his arm came around me. Tucking me in against his warm body as if he'd somehow known how cold I felt. I pressed my nose into his shoulder.

"You have a bad dream?" he asked and I nodded against him. Feeling fickle for calling a dream about a return to my homeland 'bad'. Though it had been bad. Very bad. Especially as it had continued and my people began to die under foreign swords. 'Hoot' exhaled again and I felt him rest his cheek against the top of my head. I tucked my cold toes up against his warmer feet and he did not complain.

"I'd have to get taken offa active duty" his voice was soft in the night. Thoughtful. "If I'm the kid's only support, I couldn't go out on assignments anymore. Maybe I could get a job as an instructor. I can't do a desk job. I just can't sit trapped inside. If I couldn't stay with the Army I guess I'd go back to Louisiana. I got a house near Baton Rogue. Raise him there. He'd get an awful drawl..."

It made me smile against his skin even if the fear was still deep and heavy in my chest.

"I think he would like that. He likes imitating what he hears. Would you tell him about me? And his father? When he was old enough?"

He exhaled again and his hand moved against my back.

"Darlin' - " he started to protest and than stopped himself. "Yeah" he answered me after a moment. "Yeah. I'd tell him about you. And how much you love him. And how you'll do any damn crazy thing in the world just for him. An' I'll tell him his daddy was a good man that loved him and his momma." I felt him press a kiss to the top of my head. "But I don't want to lose you. I'll take care of little Meander. But I want you here too. You go feeling a pull or a tug or things go funny for you, you find me, a'ight? You understand that? I'm plannin' on keepin' you in my life, Andy."

It sent a great shudder down through the center of me. As his words had at the pool that night that seemed so long ago. Suddenly fierce I wound my arms around him and held on tightly. For I did not want to go. And it was for more than my son that I wished to stay.

She snuck back to her bed before dawn. Hoot felt her go even though she'd tried to do it without waking him.

And the couch suddenly went back to feeling hard and uncomfortable again.

He rolled over onto his back and propped an arm behind his head. Staring at the ceiling without really seeing it.

He had plans. Long term plans. He just hadn't let on to Andy yet about them. Mostly because this was all new to her and he didn't want to scare her. Or rush her. He'd meant what he'd said about wanting her permanent in his life though.

"All right, Lord." A soldier's life didn't have much room for frills and fancy bouncing around the point when you were praying. Mostly because there wasn't often time. Besides, Hoot couldn't anymore get all high-fluting with Jesus than he could with Jeff. You didn't talk to friends that way. "I know and You know that that's the girl for me. I don't know how You sent us back to her but thank You for that. Thanks for bringin' us all back here too. Show me what I need to do to make things good for her and Meander here. And show me what I need to do to keep us here too. I'll go wherever You want but I don't get a release like I'm done with what You want me to get done in this time." He scratched contemplatively at the short hair against the back of his neck. "I'm kinda looking forward to seeing her in jeans too" he added contemplatively.

He figured that pretty much covered things for the moment. Hell, he still didn't understand the traveling back in time and all. That was pure SciFi movie channel shit. But it had happened and if his job taught him anything it was you believed the 'boots on the ground' info you collected over what you'd been told back in the safety of the base camp. So the main point wasn't that it had happened, it was that he'd gotten Andy and Meander out of the deal. Well worth a trip back to sandal and sword times. Though Jeff might think otherwise considering he was the one with broken ribs. Hoot had just dislocated his thumb and wrenched his shoulder. Bruises, scrapes and rope burns didn't count.

He wasn't going to get back to sleep. But he did relax until his alarm he'd set up next to the couch went off. Than he scooped up his change of clothes and silently made his way into the bedroom. Andy was sound asleep, curled up in a ball in the very center of his bed with Meander tucked in the curve of her. Jeff was just a mound under the covers on the other bed. The overhead fan created pleasant white noise but listening carefully, Hoot didn't hear any wheezing or other dangerous noises coming from Jeff's side. He let himself into the bathroom and less than five minutes later was heading back out the door. Ready for the day ahead.

"'hoot'?"

He paused at the whisper and turned from the bedroom door. Andy's dark eyes glinted at him from the bed and he moved back over to squat down next to her where she lay unmoving around her son. Not really able to help himself as he reached out and gently brushed the hair back from her forehead.

"Going to work, darlin'" he told her softly. "Nothin' dangerous today. I should be back in time for dinner. You take care of Jeff for me, a'ight?"

Her lips curved slightly, softly for him.

"Ah-ight" she agreed quietly. It had Hoot chuckling as he let himself out the front door and headed down the stairs.

He'd been right about the CO being pissed at Jeff's 'car accident'. And somehow, he wasn't sure just how, it had all been blamed on him. As if somehow, he was always the one that got the blond Delta in trouble or something. Which was an outright lie, of course. There had to be at least one time in Sanderson's past that had been trouble and hadn't involved Hoot. I mean, it wasn't like they'd known each other all their lives. Childhood, for instance.

Point of the matter was that Hoot was more than a little bit sore as he made his way back to the apartments. Sure, he was a bit more sore than usual because he had yet to mention he was still a bit stiff from the adventure on top of the tower to anyone. He avoided the infirmary whenever possible. And sure, he could have driven but he liked walking. Gave him time to recenter and get quiet again. The rest of K team were getting together at a local bar later on but Hoot had turned them down. He enjoyed going a round or two just as much as the next guy. But he liked the thought of going home to Meander and Andy too. And life was way too short to waste time pretending he didn't just so he could tell himself he was still a 'man'. The thought had him chuckling as he rounded the corner and saw just the woman he'd been thinking of sitting on one of the benches outside the playground to the side of the apartments. Sure enough, Meander was hanging upside down from the monkey bars making some kind of weird beeping noises to make his mother laugh.

Hoot made a beeline for them and the look on Andy's face when she turned it and saw who he was made all the aches and pains just disappear into the background.

"Hey, darlin'" he settled down on the bench next to her but he was sweaty and dirty and he didn't touch her the way he wanted to. It didn't matter. She immediately scooted over and tucked up against his side anyway. With a laugh, he put his arm around her and pulled her close.

"Scarlett showed up and interrupted before Madilyn could tell Sam about the baby's real father. Someone shot Rudy and no one knows who" she informed him and he laughed again.

"Don't let Jeff get you hooked on those things" he warned as Meander made a complicated hand exchange and hauled himself quickly along the bars. She chuckled softly against his side.

"It comes on before the BBC World New Hour" she offered by way of explanation. Hoot looked down at her as she watched her son swing himself out in a way that would have sent most mother's running to catch him. Andy didn't even stiffen against him and a moment later Meander had wrapped his long legs around another of the bars and was back upside down and laughing again.

"What'd you think of that?" Hoot asked curiously and she shook her head.

"I don't know. I didn't understand a great deal of it. 'Sandorsun' explained some of it. The world is - very big."

"Sometimes" Hoot agreed. After a minute he added: "Sometimes its too small." Meander switched back to hands and than let himself drop into the wood chips below, catching himself on all fours and than getting distracted by the color of the ground under him. "You know - you can probably call him Jeff" Hoot supplied. Andy tipped her head and took her eyes away from her son to look up at Hoot.

"The name his family would call him" she interpreted it. Hoot thought about it and gave a nod. She rested her chin against the inside curve of his shoulder. Dark eyes still on him. Meander was making growling noises and pretending to be a lion or a bear or something as he stalked around the empty playground.

"What is your family name?" she asked him and her voice was soft.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

"Norm Gibson!" The voice was a woman's and strident and demanding. Hoot took the phone away from his ear and set it down on the dining room table in front of him. Jeff, sitting across from him, raised an eyebrow.

"Which one?" he asked calmly and Hoot yawned and stood up to stretch.

"Amy" he named the sister closest to him in age. "The one that likes you."

Sanderson made a grunting noise and went back to tinkering with the scope he'd just gotten in the mail for his rifle. The voice on the phone that was sitting between them got higher pitched. Jeff's brow wrinkled and without looking away from what he was doing, he commented:

"They're really pissed at you this time."

"I know" Hoot went to the fridge and got out a Coke, popping the cap with his calloused thumb over the sink. "They think I shoulda used my leave to come home. 'To celebrate my birthday'."

"ow" was Jeff's sympathetic reply. Like most men discussing anything but sports, they didn't need to make eye contact to converse.

"Yep" was Hoot's succinct reply as he took a long swallow of the soda. Wrinkling his nose as the taste. Why was it Coke always tasted different in different countries? Wasn't it all supposed to be the same recipe? For instance, the ones he'd put down in Australia had tasted like perfume to him. Hell, he'd still drunk them anyway. Coffee or Coke. He'd worry about the health ramifications after people weren't shooting at him on a regular basis, he figured.

The voice on the phone rose high enough that he could hear his name being screeched. She knew he hadn't hung up.

"Ya know" he walked back over to the table. "I was readin' Odysseus again. Remember when he blinded the Cyclops? He told the critter his name was 'no man'. Kinda like 'norman'. Think I can tell my sisters the same?"

"You'd need more than a sack of undiluted wine and a sharp stake for that" Jeff, survivor of more than his share of Gibson 'family reunions' had a right to state it, voice calm and mild.

"Yeah, yeah, I hear ya" Hoot spoke calmly into the phone. "Yer' all kinds of pissed at me. Family guilt. I don't love you anymore. What about the kids? Anythin' I missed?"

The voice on the other line was immediately contrite and Hoot wondered how she managed to shift gears like that so fast. Of course, most of his family tended to pop a fuse pretty fast and than pitter out. Him? He just simmered until he boiled over. Luckily it didn't happen much. It took a lot more than cutting him off in traffic to tick him off when you considered what he did for a living.

The shrink's constant worry about PTSD aside.

"No, I don't know when I'll get off next. Yeah, I still love ya'll. Ya know I miss the ankle biters" Hoot stated, referring to his nieces and nephews. "Tell Janey I got her last letter and the picture she drew-" of a green monster. Or dog. Even looking at it now from the odd angle he was at, it was hard to tell. "is up on our fridge here." He chuckled. "Sure, I'll tell Jeff to keep in touch." He jerked his dark eyebrows at his friend. Who continued to ignore him. "Nah, everythin's fine. Really. No... why?" His brows did come down over his eyes this time and than he chuckled again. "Amy, stop it. I do not sound different. Really. Look, I'm gonna hang up now. Yeah, love you too, Little Bits. Now go back to sleep."

He flipped the phone shut and tossed it back on the counter.

"Julie's got kids so we've got a coupla hours before she gets up an' gets them off to school" he warned and Jeff shrugged a wide shoulder.

"Whatever, man. You're getting the phone until this all blows over."

Hoot took another swallow of his Coke and looked over Jeff's shoulder.

"You know that's gonna break the first time we go out on the field." He got an annoyed look from Jeff in response and chuckled.

"Why don't you go bother Andy?" Jeff suggested. "How long can she sit in there and stare at those new papers Doug had special delivered anyway?"

Hoot glanced toward the closed bedroom door and missed the silent eye roll Sanderson gave.

"Take a Coke" his blond friend suggested. "Sugar Meander up and take them down to the PX or something. Its been over a week and she's getting braver. She'll find her way down there herself if you don't take her first. And you really should warn her about Cookie."

Hoot gave a coughing noise and shook his head. Still looking at the door.

"I should get her out of the house" he agreed and Jeff again rolled his eyes. Hoot hit him on the back of the head.

"I saw that" he remarked as he started for the bedroom.

Andromache Ilionnin.

I sat on the bed and stared at it. It was my new name.

My son was Astyanax Scamandrius Ilionnin. His father listed as Hector Ilionnin. 'Ilionnin' I had been told simply meant 'of Ilium'. My husband's mighty city. It was - odd - seeing my husband's name on such unfeeling paper. Odd seeing it without great, glorious adjectives attached to it or the usual 'of the Flashing Helm' 'Horse-breaker' 'Man-slaughtering' or even 'noble' next to it. I had gently smoothed my fingers over the paper that bore his name so many times I thought I might wear it away. But my tears had never worn away the walls of his burial urn and now, my fingers threatened his precious name not at all either. Nothing of mine could ever harm my mighty Hector.

There was a tapping knock at the door and than Hoot opened it. It was his house. He had every right to open what doors he wanted to. It was his politeness to me that made him knock. His face changed, relaxed into that quick, quiet smile when he saw both me and my son on our stomachs on his bed with the papers spread between us. He let himself in and shut the door behind himself. Started to chuckle as he came over and sat down on the bed next to the two of us. Astyanax immediately shifted over so that he could lay against the side of Hoot's long leg. Hoot reached down and ruffled my son's dark hair and than he looked at me. Eyes dancing.

"Darlin'" Hoot's voice was silently laughing. "I think you need glasses."

"What?" I looked up, not completely understanding, brows coming together. "I am not thirsty. Why?"

He leaned over me, resting a hand on the far side so that his upper body was over mine. Looking down at the papers I had been looking at. I resisted the urge to roll over on my back so that I could look up at him and instead stayed propped up on my elbows.

"Cause, baby" he told me, dark eyes laughing. "They'll help you see better when you want to read. 'Glasses' kinda like my sunglasses, only clear. Nobody holds paper that close to their nose when they read it."

I frowned... moved one of my shoulders.

"I have always had to lean close to read letters" I told him. Turning my head so that I could look up at him. His face was very close to mine and I faltered in my thoughts. "People - write too small - " I managed, somehow, to hold onto my train of thoughts even if my voice faded.

"Well" his drawl was slow. I could almost feel his breath on my face and it was pleasant. My stomach felt funny. "Until the rest of the world gets its act in gear, how 'bout I get you some glasses? I'm off. Wanna go out and see a bit more of the world?"

I nodded. I possibly would have nodded no matter what his question had been. He smiled and I thought he knew what he was doing to me. It was glinting in the back of his dark eyes.

"Good" he leaned forward and kissed the tip of my nose. Than he sat up and rolled Astyanax onto his back, fingers wiggling against my son's round belly while Astyanax crowed his approving laughter. Hoot was grinning too. Than he stood up.

"Let me make a coupla calls and than we'll go" he told me and than let himself back out of the room, shutting the door silently behind him. I watched the door and pressed my lips together.

I knew I should feel guilty about him. I should feel guilty about the nights in the past week I had snuck out to curl up and sleep next to Hoot on the couch. I knew I should feel guilty for the pleasure I found when he touched me. For the fact that I wanted him to touch me. For the comfort I felt when I sat next to him and he pulled me close against his side.

For the kisses he lay on my hair, on my temple or forehead.

We had done nothing and yet we had already done too much.

I should feel guilty for the fact I knew when he was expected home and the way I began to watch the door. Waiting. For the way I would wake when he did and lie in bed with my son listening to the sounds of him getting ready for the day. I should feel guilty for the joy I felt in my heart to see my son's shining face light up when Hoot paid attention to him, which was so often and fulfilling to both of us.

I should feel guilty for a great number of things I was doing with this man. And yet, somehow the only thing I could truly feel guilty for was the fact that I did not feel guilty. I had to tell myself I should feel guilt. Instead of simply feeling it naturally.

How would my husband feel? If he knew how I behaved now? Would he think I forgot him? Even for a moment? That thought was enough to cause panic. For I had not. My husband was always with me. But - now Hoot was too. Even when he was not here. And it was not as I had been or felt with my husband. But I could not lie and say it was not as deep and powerful.

It had been easier on Mount Ida. I had been able to turn him away and hide myself amoung my people. But here I could not hide from him. Or the way he made me feel. And so there was no silence for me. Just the sounds of my heart and my head at war.

And I thought they were more at war because I knew they should be than because they truly were.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8:

It was called a 'mall'. And it was huge.

It was not a huge as the Summer Fair that had been held every year on the plains of Troy but it was the biggest collection of merchants under a single roof that I had ever seen. Though Hoot chuckled when I called them 'merchants'. I knew it was not the way to be impressive and regal but no one knew I was a queen here and I could not help but gawk. Both at the items for sale and at the people that passed by in such number.

Hoot had gotten something... round. And orange. With odd little wheels on it. He said it was a cart for my son. And Astyanax did enjoy sitting in it while Hoot pushed him along with one hand. Hoot's other arm was around me. I was becoming used to his arms around me but this time I was using it less for protection and more to steer me. For with him to guide me I could stare and not worry about walking into anyone or anything. He did not seem to mind and we had walked up and down the long hallway full of shops several times. We stopped now at one end and turned back to face the way we had just come.

"They make 'em bigger" Hoot told me. "With a coupla stories sometimes or branching halls."

I looked up at him. Finding it hard to imagine so many merchants in the same place in such a permanent way. And than all the questions I had been about to ask him exhaled out of me and I softened at the look in his eyes as he looked down at me.

"How many times would you walk up and down this hallway just because I asked?" I teased him gently and his quick grin flashed at me before he pulled me closer against his side and pressed a kiss to my temple.

"Until they had to close down and throw us out, darlin'."

It made me exhale a laugh and I buried my nose against the curve of his shoulder. He was indulging me. And he certainly didn't have to. But the thing that touched me most was the fact that he didn't seem to even realize that he was doing anything strange or out of the ordinary for me.

"Where should we go?" I asked him and felt him shrug against me as he wrapped me closer in an embrace.

"Glasses store so they can work on your prescription while we shop. Clothes and shoes for you an' Meander. Winter stuff 'cause its almost fall. Maybe a book store?"

"I would like that" I agreed. "I would like a book store." My knowledge about this world was growing rapidly because of the strange entertainment box that spun its stories at every hour of the day. I understood things like books instead of parchments. And cars instead of chariots. But I did not move away from Hoot to go explore what he offered and he made no move to draw me away from him either.

He felt good. It had been a long time since I had been held close and protected against a man. He did not feel as my Hector had felt. His body was different. The way he held me was different. He smelled different. But I liked being held by him all the same. Shifting my face, I raised it to press against the side of his throat and he tilted his head slightly to keep me in that curve. He was warm and it was slightly chill in this great hall. I curled both my hands against his chest. And than I heard a 'peep'.

My son had crawled out of his cart and was standing next to us. Little face raised. He reached out and tugged on the hem of Hoot's shirt and pointed. To a fountain. I didn't understand but Hoot seemed to for he reached into the pocket in his pants and gave my son a coin. I watched, without moving my head, as my little son trundled over to the fountain and threw the coin in. Offerings to Poseidon.

"Musta seen someone else do it" Hoot commented in a murmur and I exhaled. Nodded. Returned my head to his shoulder. Astyanax rumbled his way back over and wrapped his arms around Hoot's leg. Little face raised again, eyes bright. Hoot's eyebrows came down but he was laughing as he dug out another coin.

"You're gonna bankrupt me, kid" he warned but his smile said he did not mind and Astyanax burbled his laughter and ran back to the fountain.

"He likes you" I whispered it and felt Hoot's chuckle against my own chest.

"He's a good kid" he replied. "Smart as a whip and smart enough that he pretends he's not. He picks up on a lot of what's going on around him."

I shifted my eyes from watching my son splash at the water to look up at Hoot. He was still watching Astyanax and his face was soft. And proud.

"You say that as if you know how he feels" I stated quietly and Hoot looked down at me. And I saw it in his eyes.

"A little" he shrugged and looked back at my son. "Little kids know when their mommas are going through a rough time."

I stayed as I was and listened to the sound of his heart beating in his wide chest. Thinking of what was in his eyes when he spoke about 'other' children.

"Is that why you are so kind to us?" I asked quietly and I saw how it surprised him that he looked down at me.

"What? Andy - " than he blew out a breath and reached down to Astyanax as my son came scooting back over with laughing eyes. "Maybe" he admitted. "A little. You've both had a really bad time of it. But you've both handled it so well. You've been brave and you both watch out for each other. You've kept your family together even though its been tough. That takes a special kind of woman. And a special kind of kid to still be laughing and friendly in spite of it all." He ruffled Astyanax's hair and dug another coin out for my rapacious son. Hoot's dark eyes met mine. "That's not the only reason I'm hangin' around, darlin'. Don't even think that's it" his voice was low and soft as he told me. "But I admire you - both - for hangin' on the way you have. Other momma's woulda found themselves the first upright male that came along and forgotten about what that kinda man might do to their kids instead."

And something in the way he said it had me winding my arms around him and holding on tight.

They'd hit the eyeglass place. Watching Andy try not to touch and explore everything in front of her there had made his day. She was worse than Meander. By a long stretch. Than he'd submitted himself to clothes shopping. Relying on his broken German and the God sent blessing that most of the clerks spoke English better than he did. Andy, thanks to her TV time with Jeff, had some idea about acceptable clothes - which put her way ahead of him when it came to women and managed to find several dresses he thought looked - well, hell, he thought they looked pretty hot on her. And the sad thing probably was that that wasn't what she was picking them out with in mind. But she still refused even the notion of pants. Meander was a bit harder to pick out for because explaining the concept of 'boys' clothes and 'girls' clothes for little kids was still a bit out of her league. Apparently most of the time children didn't wear clothes and when they did it was all interchangeable in ancient times. Pink bunnies and ribbons however Hoot vetoed unequivocally. For the kid's own sake.

He also had to veto skirts for the kid.

Eventually they ended up with several dresses for Andy as well as a pair of sandals and another of boots. Underwear one of the other sales clerks had helped her pick out and Hoot tried not to look at that. The last thing he needed was any more ideas than he already had. Meander ended up with several pairs of jeans, a pair of overalls, socks, sneakers, a pack of underwear with bright red rockets on it, and about a half dozen shirts in various bright colors. Oh, and a baseball cap with some weird monkey character on the front and something Hoot could only hope wasn't vulgar in German on the back.

And while he stood outside with Meander while Andy changed out of the shapeless 'one size fits all' dress he'd picked up into one of the dresses they'd just bought instead, the sales clerk told him how much his son looked like him.

How much 'his son' looked like him...

Meander, in his monkey hat and overalls, had his arms around Hoot's neck while they waited for his momma and didn't even flinch when the woman said it. Hoot couldn't even be sure the little guy had understood. But Hoot had. And it - it did something funny deep in his chest and stomach. He looked over at Meander and, sensing the movement, Meander turned his round little face to look at Hoot. And he grinned. Toothy and confident, he grinned.

"Aw, shit" Hoot managed, voice sounding like someone had just hit him in the gut.

"There" Andy's voice as she came out of the fitting room. "You can burn this" she handed the 'one size' dress to the sales clerk. Very defiant about it. And than she must have caught sight of his face because she was by his side, curiously asking:

"Hoot?"

He pulled himself away from that trusting little face and inhaled. Looked down at her to see her brows together and worried. Forced his mind back to the present.

"The dress was not that ugly" he protested and the worry on her face smoothed out and she laughed at him.

"It was a very useful dress" she humoured him and he gave her a look, feeling like laughing. Than he gave her an appraising look and she shifted so he could see the dress she wore now better. He had to admit - it was a big improvement. She sure had a beautiful figure.

"All right" he conceded. "That one's better. I can even see that you've got legs" he teased since this skirt only came down to mid-calf on her. And she had some really nice legs. She laughed and slipped her arm through his.

"Can we eat now?" she asked and he nodded. A woman after his own heart.

"A'ight" he agreed with a grin. "Food court it is. I'll introduce you to Chinese food."

"Why does that sound threatening?" she laughed and he laughed with her.

And didn't tell her what he'd just realized.

That he wanted to be able to call Meander 'my son'.

Jeff was sitting at the dining room table. Messing with one of those little army men he painted up and sold on eBay. Meander was laying on his stomach on the floor 'coloring' in the loosest sense of the word, the picture in his dinosaur book in the living room. Andy was curled up on the couch next to the lamp. Wearing her new glasses and looking impossibly adorable. And reading the Iliad with a little line in between her eyebrows. And Hoot, well, he was stretched out on the couch next to her. Pretending to be reading the base newspaper that at least gave him the latest scores on the baseball teams back home. It was late in the evening and Hoot was just enjoying the way the room felt.

Until his pager went off.

Jeff's head came up as soon as the first beep sounded and Hoot reached out and caught the little black box in his hand. Checked the code on the screen. Stood up.

"I gotta go" he announced and strode into the bedroom. Andy watched him go with a surprised, slightly worried expression on her face.

"Work" Jeff supplied but there was worry in his blue eyes too. He wasn't used to not going out as well. He wasn't used to not being there when the shit hit the fan. Hoot came out a couple of minutes later, still in his jeans and t-shirt but now he was wearing sneakers and had a worn duffel bag thrown across his shoulder.

"Try not to miss me too much" he teased his friend and Jeff snorted. Leaning low, he ruffled Meander's curly hair and affectionately ordered "Be good." Than he straightened up and moved over to where Andy was. Face relaxed.

"I'll be back" Hoot stated, meeting her eyes with his dark ones. Than he leaned in and kissed her lips. Andy was still blinking in surprise as he let himself out the door.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9:

It had been a week.

I knew because Jeff had showed me how to keep track on the calender. He told me everything was all right. But I saw the worry in his eyes late at night.

I did not understand exactly what 'work' was for Hoot and Jeff. But I had not understood exactly what 'work' was for my husband either. I did not need anyone to tell me what being a soldier was though. I understood what that was in a man very well. The details of how or where were less important. Though I learned a great deal in that week, for I often caught Jeff watching the news and they showed moving pictures of some of the things that were happening in the world. It made things very vivid when my imagination decided to start late at night while I lay in the dark and listened to my son sleep.

But I had been a soldier's wife before. I knew what to do. So I kept busy.

Jeff taught me how to cook. Once I understood the stove top and how it worked, the learning went faster. It amazed me that something could become hot without either flame or oil. The oven was more to my taste because, even though there was no fire under it either, I could pretend there was and that was comforting to me. Apparently there was more to cooking than scrambled eggs or 'grilled cheese sammiches' which was all we'd eaten when Hoot had been in charge of making the food. It was true that I was a queen and had also been crown princess of the mightiest city on the Aegean. But before than I had been the only daughter in a household of seven brothers in a much smaller city deep in the woods and I was more than familiar with the process of cooking both for myself and for others. I enjoyed it and even here in this strange new land, I found it a comforting thing to do.

And in the evenings I read. I read everything I could get my hands on and Jeff was well enough that he went out often to get me new books. While the books Hoot had picked out for me talked of plumbing and electric currents, the ones Jeff brought home spoke of history. Past to him, the future to me. I learned that the world was much larger than anyone had ever suspected. That like a reborn Atlantis there was an entire half of the world that we had not know about even in whispers. That it was the land that Jeff and Hoot both came from. The maps he showed me began to make more sense finally though it was still hard to realize that the small section of the world he pointed to was my own Troy when I was so used to seeing it taking up most of a map. He also brought me a book by a man called C.S. Lewis titled 'Mere Christianity'. I read that very carefully several times. Hungry to find out about Hoot's only God.

But I did not ask Jeff to take me to the library.

I did not have any desire to move out of sight of the house suddenly.

Though I was easily comfortable with everything that was in it. And so when the phone rang one day while Jeff was away, I answered it.

There was a very long pause on the other end of the line and I was about to hand it over to my son, waiting so expectantly at my side, when a woman's voice finally asked:

"Is Norm there?"

I shook my head and than remembered it was only to carry sound.

"No" I answered. There was another long pause.

"Well... is Jeff there?" the strange voice prompted.

"No" I told her helpfully. The silence stretched long. Astyanax looked up hopefully at me.

"Well, do you know when they'll be back?" the woman hinted and I made a face as I looked at the clock. Still not sure on how to read it. Or why anyone would want to. Who cared how long a minute was? A job was not done until it was done, what difference did it make if you put a certain number of 'minutes' as a limit to it?

"Later" I offered and heard a noise from the other side of the conversation.

"Thanks" the voice was dry.

"You're welcome" I answered and closed the phone. So I did not waste 'minutes'. Again with the fixation with cutting time into small segments. Like 'weeks' I thought, looking at the calender.

By the time Jeff came back, I had forgotten about the woman on the phone and it was not until later when it rang and Astyanax pounced on it that I remembered. I looked up from my book and watched as Jeff tried to lure it away from my son and Astyanax debated the joys of the piece of candy Jeff offered for the joys of chirping over the phone at strangers. It was a hard decision for him, I could see it on his face and suddenly, with his little brows down over his dark eyes and his dark hair wavy and uncombed, he reminded me sharply of his father. I felt the pain of it through my chest even as Astyanax finally surrendered the phone and came bounding over to me with with his prize. Jeff answered the phone and even from my seat on the couch I could hear the irate female voice on the other end.

Jeff looked over to me and than took it into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. I pulled my son close against my side and went back to reading about Alexander the Great while my boy, son of princes, proceeded to get more of the chocolate bar on himself than in his mouth. I was at the sink cleaning him off when Jeff came back out of the room and set the closed phone down on the counter. He was chuckling.

"You got - answered the phone earlier today?" he asked and I looked mildly over at him while Astyanax tried to bat my hands and the wet dish cloth away.

"Yes" I answered and he started to laugh.

"That was Hoot's sister. She's pretty pissed there's a woman in the house with us. He's in a load of sh- world of trouble when he gets back."

"Why?" I asked curiously, catching one of my son's hands in the cloth while he tried to suck all the candy off the other one before I could get to it as well. I looked at Jeff. "Is she your woman?"

The man in front of me went red and made a choking noise.

"Hell no!" he protested. Holding up his hands as if to ward away the very suggestion. "I mean - no" he responded more calmly. "No, she's not."

"Than why would she be angry?" I asked. Jeff looked at me closely.

"Well, for one, Hoot's changed her from his contact. She just tried to get some information on one of his policies and got informed that her name wasn't listed for that information anymore as well." When I only blinked at him, he leaned back against the counter. Picking up a mug to play with it. "We've got 'contacts'. They're who the military, the people we work for, are supposed to find if anything happens to us while we're on a mission. Amy's always been Hoot's contact before."

He paused and I looked at him as I set my now clean son back on the floor.

"And she is not anymore" I supplied and Jeff looked up from the mug to look at me. Blue eyes meeting mine.

"No" he answered simply. "She's not."

I woke in the night and lay very still in the dark. I was not sure why I had woken, for my son still slept content against me, but I did not question that I had woken for a reason. I slit my eyes open without moving. Waited while my vision adjusted to the dim light.

Saw a silhouette in the bedroom doorway.

It froze me and I was glad I had not moved. A thousand nightmares of enemy soldiers coming for my son washed through me and the horror was enough to black everything else from my mind. Instinctive I wrapped my body around him and only belatedly remembered that Jeff slept less than a few feet from me. And yet I could not scream. It was as if I was waiting for the figure in the door to move first. And than it did.

And I found myself relaxing instead of screaming.

"Hoot" I whispered his name. Knowing the way his body moved even when it was only a slight shift against the door frame. He came into the room and I saw that he had something black and green painted on his face and that his eyes were tired. I could smell dirt and sweat, smoke and blood on him as he knelt down in front of me.

"Sorry, baby" his voice sounded raw even though it was quiet. "Didn't mean ta wake ya."

The familiar drawl was even more liquid and slurred than usual but I knew it was not from alcohol. His shoulders were the shoulders of a man who's soul was tired. I shifted on the bed and used my arm to lift the covers.

"Come to bed" I whispered and watched him start forward before hesitating.

"I'm pretty filthy, darlin" he protested quietly and I heard what it cost him to turn down my offer. I smiled in the darkness at him.

"Sheets wash. I learned how. Come to bed, Norm."

He crawled into the small bed with me and my son at that but almost immediately he turned away from us. Than I heard him grunt and a minute later the sound of his boots hit the floor. Rolling back over he reached out and wrapped his arms around me and Astyanax, pulling us both close. My son, caught between us, woke enough to shift himself more comfortably against Hoot and than went back to sleep. I snuggled close as well, winding my own arms around the dark haired man in front of me. He buried his face against my shoulder with an exhale that sounded as if it was his last breath and I tucked myself around him.

Hoot slept almost immediately. I lay awake for a long time.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

He woke up and it was dark. The cobwebs of some pretty confused and nasty dreams were still sticking to the edges of his mind and he lay still for a while as they burned off. He felt sticky, gritty and stiff. Gummy. Raising one hand, he rubbed his knuckles against his eyes and finally managed to get them open. Somebody was laying on his other arm. Which was weird because he usually didn't like sleeping with anyone's body crowding his.

There was light coming in around the edges of the shades that were pulled over the windows and Hoot saw the Jeff's bed was empty and unmade. He tipped his own head against the pillow it was on and saw Meander sprawled out against his chest. Laying on one of his arms - which had gone to sleep. The kid's mouth was open a little and there were tiny little rumbling snores, like a kitten pretending to be a lion, coming from him. The little fellow had a smear of black and green grease paint across the top of his forehead like he must have been squished up against Hoot's throat or bottom of his chin at some point earlier.

Andy was gone.

But it was kinda all right. Hoot watched Meander's round stomach rising and falling, listened to the tiny rumble coming from his small mouth in fascination. Careful not to move and disturb the kid. Even with his long arms and legs, Meander seemed so small and Hoot remembered what it had felt like in his gut to see that little body so careless tossed over the side of that ruined wall back in ancient Troy. With equal mixes of despair and anger, Hoot pulled the little boy closer against his chest and wondered how anyone could hurt little children who only expected love and affection from the world.

A full bladder finally forced him to get up. Careful to pack the blankets around Meander so the kid couldn't roll off the bed, Hoot glanced at the clock next to Jeff's bed. Saw that he'd either slept twelve hours or thirty six. Shaking his arm to get rid of the feeling of pins and needles in it, he stumbled into the bathroom. And spent a long time in there. When he finally came out again, he was shaved, cleaned up and he changed into fresh clothes watching Meander still sleeping on the bed, now sprawled out as much as he could so that his little body took up a startling amount of the bed. Hoot had had a dog like that once. Beast would take over the whole bed if you let it.

Maybe he should get Meander a dog...

With one last look at the sleeping child, Hoot let himself out into the main section of the apartment, leaving the door open so Meander wouldn't feel alone if he woke up. Jeff was gone but Andy was in the kitchen and he was surprised to find she had the radio on and was listening to Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand on it while she cooked something on the stove. He didn't know what it was but it smelled wonderful and his stomach reminded him that eating hadn't been a priority on his last mission. Feeling - freakishly normal and domestic, he padded over to her in his bare feet. She turned from what she was doing with a smile for him and slipped into his arms. Turning her head to rest it on his shoulder while her slim arms went around his waist. He figured they were past the awkward 'can I touch you?' stage. Thank God.

She smelled good. Like some kind of foreign spice or exotic flower.

"Meander pushed me out of the bed" he mumbled into her hair as he closed his eyes and soaked in the feel of her, arms wrapping tighter around her. Needing the comfort he found standing this way. The same way all he'd been able to think about last night was how much he needed to feel her in his arms. She laughed quietly against him and one of her hands moved to brush against his back.

"He is a - 'bed hog'" she inserted what she thought was the appropriate word and Hoot chuckled.

"It was nice" he admitted. Raised his head so he could look down at her. "Thanks for leavin' 'im with me."

Her smile was soft and she raised one of her hands. Hesitated and than slipped those slim fingers against his cheek. Eyes going darker, she touched his lips gently, watching what she was doing before raising her eyes to his again.

"Was it very bad?" she asked softly. Hoot saw what was in her eyes and he exhaled. Knowing he should lie and do the polite thing.

"Yeah" he answered quietly instead, letting go of her with just one arm so that he could raise his hand and tuck a strand of her cinnamon hair back behind her ear, fingers lingering on her soft cheek. "Some days you save the day and some days you're too late."

Both of her hands found his face than and she cradled it. It was a strangely comforting and understanding gesture and Hoot lowered his face into her touch, closing his eyes. He didn't admit to being tired or hurt or depressed. The rest of the guys didn't need to hear it and it wasn't like they weren't feeling it too. And his family didn't need to even guess at it. Fuck the base shrink too. But this...

He felt her lips touch his forehead and his own lips responded automatically with a brief, flickering smile.

First time she'd kissed him...

"A man is only a man. You can only do what is expected of a man. The rest is for the gods and Fate to decide." Her voice was quiet. And wise. As if she'd said the same thing before. "Remember that. Even if it hurts that you could only be a man and not a god."

It was a small apartment. I could watch Hoot as he lay on the couch while I washed the dishes.

He had offered of course. Claiming that whoever cooked didn't have to clean. Though I pointed out that, for those living alone, that created quite a mess. But I sent him to the living room instead and did the work myself. It was easy work and it made me feel right.

In Troy, despite my status, I had been the one to clean our apartments. Just as I had been the one to nurse my son. I would share my family with Troy as much as I had to. But not a drop more. It was what Hector had gotten when he had married a Thebean princess used to a household of men. He had never complained of it.

Washing dishes now, I did it for the same reason. To care for the people I loved.

Hoot had eaten like a starving man. He ate huge amounts of food regularly but this day he'd eaten enough for both himself and Jeff. It was a compliment to my cooking but I suspected he would have eaten anything I set in front of him.

He was still tired. I could see it in the edges of his eyes. I knew the signs. My Hector had often gone without sleep while away on his campaigns. I knew that, more important than anything, was the chance at peace and quiet rest. His soul needed it to stay strong. Hoot roused a strange protectiveness in me.

I had felt protective of my husband. But there was something in Hoot that spoke to something soft and fierce inside me. Perhaps it was that I was not young anymore as I had been when I had come to my Hector. I understood better what the world cost. Perhaps it was the loss of my husband that made my desire to keep what was deep inside Hoot safe so fierce.

Perhaps it was Hoot himself. Just as strong inside as Hector had been but somehow strong despite what had been damaged. At times he reminded me of all the good things in a little boy. And yet I found him no less a man or a shelter because of it.

"Stop lookin' at me that way, darlin' or I'm gonna haveta come over there so I can wrap you up in my arms again" he warned without opening his eyes as he lay stretched out on the couch. It made me smile and I put the last dish aside to dry. Peeking in on my sleeping son before crossing the rest of the distance between us. Hoot shifted over on the couch and moved his arm and I scooted in to lay down next to him and wiggle close. His arms closed around me and I could feel his smile.

How could I feel both so protective and yet so protected at the same time?

For a long time we lay that way. It was comforting and comfortable and I shut my eyes and listened to the sound of his heart, steady and sure. He was warm and he smelled like soap. He drifted in and out of a light sleep, hands tightening on me unconsciously from time to time as he woke. I heard the toilet flush in the other room eventually and than felt my son, still groggy, crawling up onto the couch as well. Astyanax worked his way so that he was lying on top of both of us and than started to burrow his way down. Hoot, awake again, chuckled and opened his arm so Astyanax could snuggle down before rewrapping both my son and I in his embrace. And it moved me deep inside. For he did not include my son because of me. He included my son because he cared for Astyanax. And again his actions were unthinking. Done simply because he wanted to, not because he realized what it meant to me.

Jeff came home in time for his soaps. Hoot teased him about it all the time but it didn't stop the man. Took a lot more than teasing to get a Delta to give up something he found comfort in. Hoot, with Andy curled up and sleeping against him finally, wasn't about to give up the couch for instance. Jeff raised an eyebrow at him but pulled over one of the dining room chairs and reversed it to rest his arms across its back in the living room. Meander, seeing Jeff back, scooted out from under the coffee table he'd been arranging his blocks under and hustled over to get the remote and give it to the blond Delta, pushing until Jeff shifted back enough on the seat for Meander to wiggle up onto it in front of him and peer over the back as well. Jeff chuckled and let him.

"He's pushy" Hoot's voice was low and Jeff chuckled again.

"It works" he agreed as Meander settled in and rested his chin on the back of the chair.

"I can't believe you let him watch that smut" Hoot muttered, trying to stretch and yawn without disturbing the woman tucked against his side.

"Andy lets him watch the news" Jeff defended and Hoot shot him a look from dark eyes over the top of the sleeping woman's head. Jeff's eyes narrowed warningly. "Don't you even ask me to try to keep her from watching the news, Hoot. She's mean when she's not getting her way."

It had Hoot chuckling again and he rested his chin against the side of her head with an exhale.

"I know" he agreed. Jeff looked at the TV and flipped on the remote.

"When are you going to ask her to marry you?"

Hoot shot him a look but Jeff was flipping channels.

"Figure I should wait until she at least kisses me under her own steam first. Why?" he asked curiously. He and Jeff shared far too much for him to take offense or find his partner nosy. They were long past the stage where anything was off limits for discussion. Closer than brothers. At least closer than Hoot and his brothers were.

"Amy called."

Hoot waited and when nothing else was offered, he grunted. Jeff's blue eyes left the over-dramatic moment between some red head and a slick looking Italian guy that was opening the show and looked over at Hoot's.

"You took her off your policy."

Hoot's dark eyes blinked and he was quiet for a minute.

"She's fast" he finally stated mildly.

"She's pissed" Jeff supplied, sounding like he found it a bit funny as he turned his attention back to the TV.

Hoot made a snorting sound and closed his eyes again.

"Amy's always pissed about somethin'."

"She threatened to come out here" Jeff warned and Hoot's eyes flew open again.

"Ah, hell, no!" he started to sit up in reaction and Andy made a startled, quiet noise that immediately made him feel guilty. Meander turned away from the TV with worry on his little face. "Sorry, baby" Hoot pressed a kiss to Andy's temple and her hazy honey colored eyes, still dark with sleep, blinked back at him. Surprised but not scared.

That meant a lot to him.

Meander, sure that everything was all right, turned back to the TV that was showing someone in a hospital bed while people plotted over them.

"what...?" Andy's voice was soft and slightly sleep blurred. A little bit throaty. Hoot lost track of what his thought line had been hearing her voice that way.

"Show's on" Jeff offered and Hoot shot him a dark look - which was ignored - as Andy inhaled and rolled over to face the TV. Snuggling backward which pacified Hoot. A little. He wrapped his arm around her waist and propped his head up under the other one.

"Figure I've got other people needin' the support if I kick it" Hoot supplied after a minute. Figuring it wouldn't bother Andy if she didn't know what the conversation was about. Most people didn't like to hear about the money they were going to get when you were unlucky enough to get yourself smeared across a wall. Well, most normal people. His family considered it dinner table discussion.

"Military pays wives better" Jeff stated calmly and Hoot shot him another look over the top of Andy's head.

"I know" he warned. And he was working on that. Damn, Jeff was starting to sound like a big brother and frankly, Andy hadn't even done anything with him that needed protection from. Shoot, you could pretty much include Meander in everything. Hoot was trying to stay good and that meant everything was pretty PG. Hell, maybe it was even G-rated and what did that say about his love life?

"Just saying" Jeff remarked.

Because they both knew the way things were. Time wasn't something a Delta could afford to mess around with. You never knew when your allotment of it was going to run out.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

"Sergeant Gibson?"

Hoot turned away from the window he was looking out of. Wondering why the tiny secretary was asking. He was the only person other than her in the room and he must be the only appointment for this hour. The implied stupidity annoyed him and so he didn't answer, just looked at her.

"The doctor will see you now."

Hoot nodded and picked up his hat. Tucking it under his arm from well trained habit. Cover on when outside, cover off when inside. Still not answering he followed her gesture and let himself into the office that led off from the cheaply decorated waiting room.

Saw a new face and wasn't surprised.

"Doc" he nodded and the young man behind the desk stood up after closing a very thin file and offered his hand.

"Sergeant Gibson, so good to finally meet you. I'm Doctor Barker. Please have a seat."

Hoot shook the offered hand. Not because it was military protocol but because he was Southern and it was an embedded habit. So was judging a man by the grip of his handshake. Than he took one of the two seats on this side of the desk. The one farthest from the window. Closest to the door. He set his hat on the other seat. The good doctor sat back down in his much more comfortable looking desk chair and tapped the file in front of him.

"There's a surprisingly little amount of paperwork on you, Mr. Gibson" he began.

"Sergeant" Hoot corrected mildly. The man gave him an inquiring look but Hoot didn't elaborate. 'Mr.' was for civilians. Hoot wasn't a civilian. He resented being down graded to one. Barker smiled.

"All right, sergeant" he continued, unfazed. Hoot could hear a slight droning noise in the background. Air conditioner. He was a big fan of air conditioners, especially since most places he stayed in didn't have them. But there was nothing like a hot day out mowing the yard back home and coming back inside to air conditioning and a tall pitcher of iced tea. That's what he really missed. Good old Southern iced tea. You just couldn't make it right anywhere else - something about the sun concentration or something, he figured. And the stuff they sold in stores was atrocious. His grandma would have rolled over in his grave if he'd ever started getting hooked on the fake stuff. She'd been a good woman. He remembered going over to her house and seeing the big old jug of sweet tea brewing on the pourch.

"Sergeant!"

Hoot focused his eyes and saw the man at the desk in front of him looking slightly offended. Hoot however realized he was feeling more relaxed and he exhaled and stretched his long legs out in front of him.

"Yeah?" he asked and Barker gave him a look.

"I was saying that you seemed to have missed quite a few psych evaluations in your time in the service and I wondered if you'd like to explain why to me?"

Hoot thought about it.

"Nope" he decided. Barker frowned.

"Mr. Gibson, you know these psych evaluations are both mandatory and for your own good - "

Yeah. Those had been good summers at his grandma's place. She'd been a corker. Tough little thing, build like a bird she was so small. But she'd been tough. Tough as nails and sweet as sugar. Come to think of it, Andy got that look sometimes too. Maybe it was a momma thing. That look in her pretty dark eyes that warned you not to even think of challenging her on some matter. 'Course, she usually only used it when it was a 'for your own good' type of thing. Damn, he liked seeing her face when she was 'serious' about something. Especially since it was so easy to make her laugh when she got that way. He did like the sound of her laughing... She said he was a bad influence on Meander. He hoped so.

"Mr. Gibson!"

"Sergeant" Hoot stated calmly.

"Sergeant Gibson" Barker spoke in a reasonable voice. "There's no reason to make this difficult. Its required by the people that employ you - "

"I know" Hoot agreed easily. "Ya wanna make sure I ain't gonna shimmy up no tower somemere an' start poppin' people."

Barker's eyes narrowed as he concentrated on following the foreign language coming from Hoot's mouth and than he exhaled.

"Its to make sure your job isn't effecting you adversely, Sergeant Gibson" he explained patiently.

There it was again. That implied stupidity.

"I kill people fer a livin'. An' I spend a lotta time havin' people tryin' ta kill me" Hoot raised his dark eyebrow. "Now why would you thank I was bein' adversely effected?" he asked mildly.

"Mr. Gibson" the doctor paused and took a breath. "Sergeant. I suspect you're making this difficult on purpose. Your file shows an extraordinarily high IQ and I can only assume - "

He liked listening to Meander laugh too. The kid had a good laugh. One of those round gurgly laughs that made you feel good in your belly. And the kid had his momma's eyes too. Not in color or shape but they both sparkled just the same way when they were enjoying something. He wanted to take them out. A real good restaurant or something. Somewhere fancy, he realized. She'd been a queen and even if she never said anything he wondered how she could be content in his and Jeff's tiny little apartment. She seemed to like it that way. But he didn't just want to treat her like she was beer and hot dogs kind of girl. She deserved a lot more than just that.

Especially since she didn't like beer...

Hoot realized the doctor had stopped talking and was watching him. Bringing himself back, he returned the gaze. Having no idea what the other man had been saying and not about to pretend he did. Or that he cared.

"I understand that your last mission was a bit hard on some of the men" Barker stated after a long minute. And Hoot nearly jumped over the desk and punched him. He didn't. He stayed in his chair and didn't flinch. But the first instinct had been there. He didn't answer that. Just stared at the man.

What did some little grad school punk know about 'hard'? He didn't even have a right to bring up their last mission. Had he been there? Had he seen the burned out village buried in the jungle? Seen the dead bodies of the babies and the women all black and crisped, huddled in the corners of the ruined huts? Had he smelled that impossible to forget smell of burned meat and seen the flies? Seen where the animals had already been at them? Little punk ass had no idea what a 'hard mission' looked like. Had no idea how frustrating it was to have the bad guys already come and gone with their shit too late to stop and there was nothing - nothing - you could do about it.

That's why Hoot hated these things. If he was going to pop and go rambo on anyone, some pale, protected, naive little shrink wasn't going to be the one to figure it out. Not until Hoot was already across the desk and beating his head against the floor. And maybe that was the test. Because - Hoot had stayed in his seat. Barker was still watching him innocently.

Barker sighed.

"I'm not the enemy, Sergeant Gibson. I've actually been known to be a bit helpful from time to time. You're specialized in your field and I'm specialized in mine. Really, some of the men find these sessions a relief."

"You know what I'd find a relief" Hoot asked and than didn't wait for the answer. "I'd like to take my girl and her kid and go to a barbecue joint. You know, the good ol' American kind where they give you a brown bag for the bones and wet naps in those little packages. An' I'd order the biggest pitcher of lemonade they had and ribs. Lots of ribs. With some corn bread and some collard greens. And we'd all get as messy as we could. I'd like pecan pie for dessert too. Hot with a big scoop of ice cream on it." He rested his hands over his stomach and exhaled. Liking that picture in his head a lot better than the one that had been in it previously. Meander would get such a kick out of that. He thought Andy secretly would too. She struck him as the kind that liked being messy because she wasn't so often.

"Your accent has slipped a bit" Barker remarked dryly. Hoot shot him a sudden grin. The doctor shook his head.

"Fine, Sergeant." He opened the folder and signed the sheet inside. "I can't force you to help yourself if you refuse to think anything's wrong. I'm clearing you with reservations. But I want you to let me or your CO know if you start having problems sleeping or start to feel emotionally detached."

"I know" Hoot stood up, picking up his hat. Ready to be out of the room. "Flashbacks, nightmares, heightened reactions. I already took the written test outside." PTSD symptoms were pretty much pounded into them. The military might be slow on the uptake but once it got its teeth on something it just didn't let go. He nodded his head to the doctor at the desk and than let himself out of the room. You didn't have to tell him twice when he was free to go.

Once he was outside, he rolled his neck and than put his hat back on. Started walking home. Ready to be out of his dress greens and back where he belonged. If the military really wanted to know how he was doing they wouldn't ask him to spill his guts to some stranger. Jeff and Andy understood. Even little Meander understood to some degree. And they didn't have to ask. They'd been through the shit too. They just knew.

Andy was sitting on the couch with a book when Hoot let himself into the apartment. Strangely, Meander wasn't nearby. Hoot's brows came down.

"Where's Small Fry?" he asked, setting his hat on the top of the TV. She wasn't wearing her glasses.

"Jeff took him to a 'movie'" Andy answered and Hoot's eyebrows went down even more. Walking over he sat down next to her.

"Why'd you do that, baby?" he asked and she immediately abandoned the book she'd been holding upside down anyway and crawled into his lap. For such a tall woman, she folded up surprisingly small and he wrapped his arms around her. Knowing something was wrong but not having a clue what it was. Her long hands knotted in the stiff fabric of his dress uniform.

"He kept her." Her voice was muffled against his shoulder but he heard the anguish in it. It wasn't just pain, it was pure anguish and he tucked her even closer into him. She sounded so hurt. He'd never heard her sound so hurt before.

"Tell me what you're talkin' about, darlin'" he told her quietly.

"Padme. Pyrrhus kept her. My name is in the books." One of her slim hands waved vaguely in the direction of the book before returning to cling to him and Hoot looked at the title. Alexander the Great.

"That's way past your time, baby" he tried to sooth her but she shook her head.

"Alexandar's mother. Olympia. She said she was the descent of Andromache and Neoptolemus' daughter. I didn't believe it so I asked Gloria to look it up for me on her smart TV. Andromache bore Achilles' get three sons. He took her back to his grandfather's land. Hector's son dies but Achilles' line lives on under my name. Padme took my place. She suffered what should have been mine."

She wasn't crying. The horror he heard in her voice was too much for that. He'd done his own reading up about history's 'Andromache' when they came back. He just hadn't expected - he'd hoped at least - damn. He should have known better. He knew Andy had a curious mind and was always asking questions. Why shouldn't she ask questions about the people she'd left behind?

Still... Jeff wouldn't have left her if she was this way. And he certainly wouldn't have taken Meander.

"Baby" his voice was low. There was a nasty suspicion growing at the back of his mind. "You haven't let little Meander outta your sight since you got here. Why'd you send him off now?"

"I thought - I thought maybe he was what was keeping me here." Her voice was very small.

The anger flared through him than and he could have blamed it on the shrink hauling things up to the surface. But he knew better. It was to cover the fear.

"Damn it, Andy!" he jerked her back, hands on her upper arms. Dark eyes stormy. "What if he had been?!" he demanded, leaning close. "That's not fair an' you know it!"

Her eyes when they met his were full of that bone deep anguish. And an empty sorrow. But not fear of him and it didn't even seem to occur to her to resist his touch.

"I'm sorry" she shook her head. "No matter what I do I hurt someone. I abandon her, who only lived to care for me. Or I abandon you."

It choked him. To hear himself included. His eyes searched hers and his brows were low over his dark eyes. But like a lanced wound, she kept speaking now that it had started.

"Astyanax belongs here. You will take care of him and this world is good to him. He doesn't have to hide from his father's enemies. Troy has no power over him here. And your God is a God of forgiveness, who will watch over him. But Padme loved me and she took my pain on herself. If I leave her there, she will suffer more than anyone should - and she will be suffering in my place! Its not right to abandon her to that. But I don't want to go. I am scared. And - I want to stay with you. And yet how can I think of my future when I don't know where it will be? I don't know what brought me here. What if it takes me back? I thought - I thought if I should go now, than at least I would know and it would be over. Instead of waking up each day and not knowing if I am here or there. I have been waiting to wake up for so long from this sweet dream." Her voice changed than. Softened and went hopeless. Just like her eyes. And her slim hands left his jacket to cup the sides of his lean face. "If I do not wake up soon, I will never survive it when I do wake." Her eyes were bottomless when she quietly asked:

"How can I bear losing you?"


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12:

It was true. It was all true. I had tried hard to hide it and most days I did. Even from myself.

But sometimes - often for no reason - I would find myself suddenly seized with panic. Not simply fear or worry. But a bone locking panic. It would come upon me so suddenly and so completely that I felt I would surely lose my mind. For I did not belong in this time, in this place, and as much as I pretended otherwise, that knowledge would sometimes seize me in its sharp jaws and shake me. Tearing at my heart. These new things I pretended to accept - this 'electricity' and 'air planes' and 'moving pictures'... they were not real. They were all part of the dream I walked in. That I had begun walking in when my son had been torn from my arms and thrown from the walls of Troy.

Perhaps the dream I had been walking in since I had left my husband's cave where his ashes lay and found a man in a body that would not quite look like his.

And I could not deny that it was a sweet dream. But it was not real. These kinds of things did not happen. Not even when the gods stepped down from their mountain, these things did not happen. Often I could fool myself into believing this was truly happening to me. But not when I truly reached inside. Deep inside - I knew this was all something else and soon I would be torn out of it.

I could not bear that thought.

But I was slowly losing the ability to not think it anymore. Each day, instead of bringing me further from being taken back, seemed to bring me closer to the time I surely must have to return.

And - forgive me, Padme... my husband... my people...

I did not want to go back.

I had fought for so long. Been everything everyone had asked me to be. Given up my husband and held out my child in offering. I simply wanted... I simply wanted to have a life that was mine. That was all. And I wanted Hoot in my life. And Sanderson. And hot running water and cold food.

And a bed warm with the feel of a man's body and the sight of my son's eyes bright with acceptance...

I felt like wailing like a small child. Or putting my arms over my head and screaming. But I could not be sure I would remember how to stop either of those if I began.

"Baby. Hey, Andy. Look at me, darlin'." I did. It was the sound of his voice. As if no one had ever not done what he said when he spoke in such a tone. Hoot's dark eyes were very close to mine. "You're still here. You get that, baby? You sent Meander off an' you're still here. You tried to leave an' you didn't. Right?"

Mute, pressing my lips together, eyes fixed huge on his, I nodded. He exhaled.

"Maybe you ain't supposed to be leavin', darlin'" he offered gently and I did feel the tears than. Felt them finally filling my eyes and I blinked to keep them from falling.

"I won't survive if I believe that and I'm wrong" I whispered, voice tight in my throat. Hands once again clawed in the stiff fabric of his over-tunic. He shifted me than, gentle, and laid me on my back on the couch, his body resting over mine. And it felt - so good. And - reassuring. As if he could physically keep me here. With him. Being held this way by a man, having one over me, had never been a scary or brutalizing thing for me and I found only comfort in it now. To have his face above mine and his eyes so dark. His weight against me. It calmed me. Soothed me.

"You're not surviving so good thinking the other way either, darlin'" he murmured gently and I saw a strange understanding in his eyes. Needing it, I reached up with one hand and stroked along his clean face.

"What did the 'shrink' say?" I asked softly and his lips shifted into one of his quiet, quick smiles before he shook his head. One of his large hands brushed the hair gently back from my forehead.

"Later, darlin" he soothed me. "Right now, we're gonna talk about you. A'ight?"

I pressed my lips together and blinked and my other hand left his jacket to slip around his shoulders.

"Look" his voice was gentle. Just like his touch. And that understanding was still in his eyes. "You're thinkin' too much. Don't. Padme knew what she was doin'. You can't control what happens to other people, the mights or might nots, could've or would've - it ain't up to you. It's just life." His hand stroked my hair and his eyes held mine. "You understand that, baby? It's just life."

And I realized why he understood. Because they were in his eyes too. The ones that had been left behind. The ones that had taken pain meant for him. He was a soldier. And he understood waking up when you didn't expect to.

He understood others dying in your place.

Gentle I rubbed my hand along his cheek in a soothing motion that reassured me.

"How do you manage?" I asked softly. And he smiled. His quick, flashing grin and his dark eyes smiled at me too.

"I listen to the smart lady that tells me to remember I ain't God" he answered back, voice drawling. "That I can only do what a man can do and the rest is up to Him."

It made something in me go watery and I wrapped both of my arms around his neck while he rested over me.

"How can you be this way?" I asked, my own voice quiet and shaking with the tears in my chest. In a way, he had lived in this so much longer than I. Lost friends and no promise of a future. Somehow - I found I could borrow his strength in that. Somehow - he found a way to give it to me. Slow, he lowered his face toward mine.

"I like confusin' people" he drawled slow. I tightened my arms around him to draw him closer and his arms went around me. His lips were very close to mine. But he did not kiss me.

"Ask me, baby" he murmured. And so I did. Stepping that far at least into the future I didn't trust. Because I couldn't stay away anymore.

I had run out of excuses.

"Please?" I whispered and than I raised my lips for his.

They didn't make movies long enough anymore, Hoot decided.

Sure it had been long enough to have his uniform jacket and tie off and unforgivably on the floor. His shoes were down there somewhere too. Along with her book. But - seriously - two or two and half hours just wasn't long enough. They'd barely settled into the endlessness of a really, really good kissing session when Jeff opened the door.

"Hey!" the blond man protested loudly, instinctively covering Meander's eyes with one hand and his own with the other. "Whoa. Dam - dang it, Hoot! You know the tie rule."

"Don't you wanna take Meander and git some ice cream or somethin'?" Hoot asked without raising his face from where it rested against the side of Andy's. Who was, as far as he could tell, trying to slip completely under him and disappear. It was odd. He knew she'd been married. For years from the sounds of things. But her touches had been so hesitant, almost shy. At least at first. They'd worked their way past that. He hadn't been the one that had undone the tie and jacket afterall.

"Uh" Jeff's voice, sounding thoughtful. "No" he decided and Hoot untangled one hand from Andy's long silken hair long enough to shoot him the bird. Just his luck to have Jeff playing big brother on him now. Jeff made a noise in his throat and Hoot felt a little hand on his shoulder. Calmly patting. He turned his head to look at Meander, standing there next to the couch with curiousity in his eyes. Despite the situation, Hoot started to grin.

"Come on, Shorty" he gave up and shifted to the side, tucking Andy up against him where she continued to have her face buried against his throat. Smiling brightly, Meander crawled up onto the couch with them and Hoot tucked him up in his arms too.

Shooting Jeff a dark glare over their heads. Jeff just gave him an innocent look.

"I know" Hoot answered the unspoken question in annoyance and Jeff showed his palms as if to ask what on earth his roommate was going on about. Hoot's eyes just narrowed in response.

"I'm just going to be in the bathroom. Washing up" Jeff defended. Palms still raised but in mock self defense now. Hoot started to chuckle.

"What'd you take the kid to see anyway?" he asked, raising his voice a bit as Jeff disappeared into the bedroom.

"Kids' matinee was playing old movies" his friend's voice answered back. "We saw Finding Nemo. Meander liked the sharks."

"Yeah?" Hoot looked down at Meander who was brushing a strand of his mother's hair contentedly against his round cheek while she shifted against Hoot enough to watch her son. Meander smiled beatifically up at Hoot and in a perfect Australian accent quoted:

"Fish are friends. Not food."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13:

For top operatives in intelligence gathering and general sneakiness, Hoot wondered how both he and Jeff could have managed to miss someone as loud and nosy as Gloria having managed to introduce herself to Andy and form a friendship. But Farvel's wife from two doors down had. Hence the reference to the 'smart TV' that had turned out to be the computer Andy had used to do all her historical digging. Andy was learning so much about her new world that it was hard to keep track of and often took Hoot by surprise.

Hearing her confessions last night had been a surprise to him too.

Jeff was gone for the evening, trying to sort through the German post that had somehow lost a package his mother had sent him. Since his mother always sent food, in the form of a ham or two, it was a package worth fighting for. It would have been easier if she'd sent it to the APO box but she was bad about that kind of thing. If she'd sent it to the APO it still would have gotten lost, but it would have been 'lost' in some desk sergeant's stomach and at least they would have known it.

Hoot sat at the dining room table, long legs stretched out under it and contentedly watched Andy washing the dishes. He'd offered but she'd refused and he had to admit, it was kind of nice to have someone clean up after him. It made him feel spoiled and he wasn't used to that. But he liked it. Meander was playing with his cars on the floor in the living room.

Hoot was wrestling with something he didn't want to deal with.

Andy, as he'd started to figure out, knew something was bothering him and wasn't helping by not asking. In fact, by not asking, or even acting like she knew what was going on, she just made him want to tell him. He was sure it was some sneaky female thing. Wishing his sisters had tried it. Except - well, it wouldn't have worked for them since he wouldn't have felt like telling them.

Finally he got tired of her silent treatment.

"Andy?" he asked and she made a humming noise to show she was listening while she finished wiping off the counter.

"Why're you with me?"

She turned and gave him a funny look.

"Because we just finished dinner" she pointed out logically.

"Not that" Hoot shook his head. "Why're you here? With me? When you could be anywhere?"

Her brows came down and she folded the dish towel in her hands.

"Because this is where Jeff brought me when we came from Spain."

Hoot pushed away from the table and stood up to walk over to her. Cupped her face in his hands and leaned down to kiss her.

"Baby, you know what I'm askin."

She swayed into him at his kiss. Always so content and pleased to be against him now. Not that he was complaining. In fact, he shouldn't even be asking what he was. But he was going to have to face it sooner or later.

"Oh" her voice was soft and she opened her eyes to look up at him. "You are asking why I am here with you instead of out chasing other men."

"Andy" he made her name the chiding exasperation and she laughed at him. At him! Just like that!

"You are worried I have only known you in this world and that is why I am still with you and not someone else. You are worried that I have limited choices here and I may feel trapped later on when I have time to realize how big the world really is if I have chosen to stay with you." Her fingers curled in the fabric of his shirt against his chest and she looked up at him with clear eyes. "Is that what you wanted to ask me?"

He exhaled and couldn't help the quiet smile.

"Yeah" he nodded. Unable to stop himself from slipping his hands up to cup her hips. She still wouldn't wear pants and the dress she was in now was something soft and light. He could feel her gentle warmth through it.

She exhaled as well and her eyes went soft.

"I came to my husband when I was very young. He was the first man, the only man until you, my body has ever known. It was a marriage our parents had arranged from when I was only a baby. He was gentle with me and I learned to love him. He learned to love me. But I had no choice in the matter originally." She lowered her head for a minute, fingers playing with the fabric of his shirt. And he gave her the time she needed. "When he died - " she lifted her face to look up at him and her eyes were empty and large. "When that beast took him away from me - I thought I had died too. I couldn't imagine living without him there. It was impossible to think of marrying again. Loving again. I had two years like that. But it was because I wanted them. It is not unusual for a widow to remarry shortly into her mourning. And there were men worthy of it and willing." Her eyes found his and she smiled. Soft and sweet and a little sad. "But I did not want them. Than I came here. And this world is so large and frightening and exciting. And I see men here too that seem kind and noble and willing. But I do not want them either." Her hands slipped up and cupped his face. "But you have crossed both times. And I would have gone with you there as willingly, as hesitantly, but as surely, as I do here. This time I am allowed to make my own choice. And I choose to stay by your side. For as long as I am able. For as long as you will have me."

He felt something thorny and tangled in his chest finally slip free and ease and he inhaled. Started to smile as he drew her up against him. He hadn't been sure what he'd hear. Or what he'd want to hear. But she'd found exactly what he needed. Thank You, God. Leaning low, he rested his forehead against hers.

"Which guys here told you they were willing?" he asked.

She only laughed at him.

Hoot hung up the phone and glared at it. Jeff looked up from his paper. Raised his eyebrow.

"We've got trainin'" Hoot muttered, scrunching back in the cushions of the couch and stretching his long legs out. Jeff's blue eyes lit.

Andy was over at Gloria's. Apparently she did that a lot. Sneaky women. And who knew what kind of evil they were plotting?

"For how long?" Jeff asked and Hoot shrugged.

"Some new weapons they want us to learn to play around with. A week. Two. Why?" he shot his friend a suspicious look. "You gonna try to convince Andy I'm a bad idea while I'm gone?"

Jeff laughed.

"She already knows you're a bad idea" he went back to his paper. It broke Hoot out of his mood and he snorted. Than chuckled.

"I think she kinda likes that" he commented smugly, folding his arms behind his head while he leaned back a bit more. There was a relaxed pause and than he asked: "So why're you so hopped up?"

"Well, I can do training" Jeff stated, looking at Hoot. "I'm not slowing anybody down with that."

There was a long pause. Their eyes met across the room. Finally Hoot opened his mouth.

"No" Jeff's voice was quick and sure.

"You didn't even know what I was gonna ask" Hoot was irritated and Jeff shook his head.

"How long have we been together, bud? I know exactly what you were going to ask me. Because I'd ask you the same thing. And the answer's 'no'."

"Look, its just for another month or so. 'Til the security clearance comes through from Doug for her. Than she'll be legal for me to marry with all the hush-hush that goes on with our line of work."

Jeff's eyes narrowed and he looked hard at his friend.

"I like Andy. You know I do. And Meander's a trip. But I'm going out of my mind here, Hoot. I can't go on missions, they threw me out of the command center because they said I was 'looming' and even Andy's started throwing me out of the house at about noon time everyday. I can work out, I can keep up, and I'm the best in our unit when it comes to new toys. I should be there. I need to be there. And that's not personal, man. That's the job."

"That's two weeks of Andy being alone" Hoot worried. Shifting in his seat so he was hunched forward, forearms across his knees.

"How long did you expect me to play babysitter?" Jeff questioned suspiciously. And than he relented. "Look, Hoot, she's a smart woman. And she's made a lot of friends around the compound. We can ask them to take a look in on her from time to time. And we already know she knows how to use a phone. You can call her every night."

Hoot's dark eyes shifted.

"I don't like leavin' her an' the kid alone" he admitted after a minute, voice low and throaty. Jeff gave him a sympathetic look. They saw the worse of what the world could do to someone. It tended to make you overprotective of what you had. The people you cared for.

"You're going to have to do it sometime" Jeff offered quietly. Hoot looked away.

"I know."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14:

"Isn't it time for you to leave yet?" I asked. And got a dark look in return.

He wasn't happy about leaving. He hadn't been happy about leaving since he'd found out he was but considering he was waiting for a car to pull up to take he and Jeff away with their bags for the training, he was even more not happy than he had been before. I couldn't call it 'unhappy' because there was nothing sad about his mood. But his was swinging between being irritating and annoying. To me at least.

"Don't you want to inhale one of those smoking rolls of bark?" I asked and got another dark look. But than a quick grin.

"You don't like kissin' me after I smoke. An' I'm gettin' my goodbye kiss before I go, darlin'."

It made me laugh and I went over to where he was sitting on the arm of the chair, looking out the window and settled onto the seat of it. Rested my hands on his thigh. He looked down at me and his face softened. Gentle he touched my chin.

"I'm worried 'bout you, darlin'." His voice was as gentle as his touch. "I don't like no one bein' able to keep an eye on you."

"Should I point out I led an entire army of people for two years?" I asked rationally and he chuckled.

"I know" he agreed, shifting off of the arm of the chair and down onto the seat with me. His long legs stretched out on either side of me and I curled close against his chest and stomach as he wrapped his arms around me. I did not want him to leave. Not at all. He had only just come back. But he was a soldier and I knew what that meant. And, for me, it meant never making it hard on him to do what he needed to.

"But you had people watchin' out for you than. Sleepin' in the same room an' all."

"Are you trying to frighten me?" I asked calmly. Trying another tact. His head jerked and he gave me a glare.

"You know I ain't. Dang it, Andy. You're gonna make me just say it, aren't you?"

I lifted my eyebrows at him and tipped my head to see his face. He looked down at me and his face softened.

"I'm gonna miss you, Andy. I'm gonna miss you like crazy. It'd be nice if you sounded like you were gonna miss me too. At least a little."

"oh" it melted something in my chest and I raised my hand. Laid it over where his heart beat so steady. Feeling, foolishly, as if I were going to cry. Because I would miss him. Horribly. Miserably. And with a hidden fear that he would not return or that I would not be here when he did. I just hadn't known he'd wanted to hear that. It was supposed to be a burden to him, not a good thing. His lips shifted. Smiled and it was a private, understanding smile.

"Yeah" his voice was low and soft. He traced my jaw with his fingers. "I wanna know you miss me just like that." Than he lowered his face and, tangled together in the chair the way we were, he kissed me. And it was all the warm, slow spreading honey of what he was to me as well as the fire tinged edges of what he would soon be. It soaked deep through my chest and than spread outward and I wrapped my arms around his neck and answered him in kind.

"Okay, kids - oh! hey! Tie rule when you're doing that!" Jeff had let himself back into the apartment and a strange man was peering with undisguised curiousity over his shoulder at us. My son squeezed through and immediately climbed onto Hoot and I. It had taken me a while to get used to Hoot touching me. I was still getting to used to people watching when he did it. Astyanax had no such problem however and he smiled up at Hoot as he settled onto the curve of my waist. He was getting big - this son of mine. Hoot leaned down and kissed the top of Asyanax's curly head. Face very serious, looking into my son's dark eyes, so like his own, he stated:

"You're the man of the house now, short stuff. You gotta take care of your momma. An' when I get back, we're gonna go to the zoo and see if the bears are awake yet, a'ight? Just you an' me."

Astyanax offered his hand, little face solemn. Something the men had taught him. Hoot shook his hand, just as serious.

"A'ight" Astyanax mimicked perfectly and Hoot laughed. Ruffled his hair. Than he leaned back in and kissed me again.

"Miss me when I'm gone" he told me and wordless for the sudden lump I found in my throat I could only nod as he untangled himself and got up. Leaned down and stole another kiss. And than he and Jeff and the strange man were out the door. I should have let them go. But I found myself standing up with my son in my arms and walking to stand in the doorway.

Hoot looked up to see me just before he climbed into a strange looking truck and than they were gone.

I kept busy. It was what women did when their men rode off to war. While Hoot had not exactly 'ridden' and he had assured me no one was going to be trying to kill him this time, my emotions still felt very close to the same as if he had. It was strange but the apartment suddenly seemed very large and empty without Hoot or Jeff in it. Gloria helped, coming over often and bringing food. I believe she was convinced I could not cook for myself even though I was growing very competent at it thanks to both Jeff's lessons and the programs I watched on the television box.

Though I refrained from shouting 'bam!' all the time the way one of the men on the television seemed to want to encourage me to whenever I added ingredients.

Susanna also came over often and dragged her Michael with her. Astyanax loved to sit in her arms and play with her dark hands and I wondered if he remembered his grandmother's royal personal guard when he did so. Berta came by often too but it was usually to drop Jack off and than leave again. He was two years older than my son and thought himself immensely helpful. I did not mind.

I had always thought I would give Hector more children. But that had not been our fate.

And I went to church with Susanna. In many ways it was very different from what I was used to. There was no smell of blood and burning flesh. No cloying incense. No one rooted through animal entrails or spoke in strange hollow voices. I enjoyed the singing. And the God they taught about was not petty and fickle, changeable and spoiled.

It was a new concept to me. A God that gave instead of took. One who was the sacrifice instead of demanding them. I thought I liked Him.

It was coming back from one of those trips with Susanna that I opened the door to my apartment to find another woman in them. And she was furious. I tried to remember if I'd forgotten to lock the door again.

"You're her, ain't ya?" she was aggressive in her approach and I tipped my head and looked at her.

"Who?" I asked calmly. Her eyes narrowed.

"You know who I'm talkin' about! Yer that girl Norm's been hidin' from the rest of us! What'd you do ta him?"

I had to stop and think about that question. I had done a great deal to 'Norm' in the time I had known him. And, vaguely, a part of me wondered if she really wanted to hear about how I'd tried to lead him into an enemy camp or the fact that I was finding so many excuses to kiss him now.

"You are - Amy?" I guessed and she snorted.

"Damn straight" she gave what I took for an affirmation. "An' yer that woman I talked ta on the phone."

"Yes" I nodded. She looked at me as if she was expecting more but I simply looked back at her.

"Yer foreign, ain't ya?" she asked finally and my eyebrows arched. To my way of thinking I was either more foreign than she could imagine or she was in fact the foreign one here. Her hands found her hips.

"Look" her eyes were dark but still not as dark as Hoot's. "I don't know what's goin' on here but we're not about ta let some strange woman come along an' yank our brother out from under us."

"Why was he under you to begin with?" I asked mildly and watched her eyes narrow down to slits.

"Hey, Andy - Meander's been building these shapes with stones outside and I was wondering..." Susanna had come in behind me and her voice trailed off as she spotted the other woman. "Oh. Hello, Amy" her voice was flat and carefully expressionless.

"Susanna" Hoot's sister was dismissive. But my friend stayed by my side. And just than my son ran into the house, little face bright with joy, calling me 'muma' excitedly. And I watched the woman across from me as her face went pale and her eyes went large.

"Holy shit! Norm has a son and he didn't even bother tell us?!"

I drew my son against my side and my eyes narrowed. Astyanax peered around the fabric of my skirt at her, unconcerned and curious.

"This is my son" I stated firmly. "Not Norm's."

"You're shitting me!" she snapped back. Face changing. "He's got Norm's eyes. He even looks almost exactly like Norm did when he was a little boy. Who're you tryin' ta fool?"

"No matter who he looks like, his father was not Norm" my voice was flat and hard. Final. Guards had bowed to me when I used that tone. She subdued as well. But still had her small rebellion by exhaling a soft snort and sullenly muttering: "Bull shit."

I refrained from rolling my eyes upward but only because I had been trained too well all of my life for it.

"Is there a reason you are here?" I asked her and she shot me a look.

"I'm waitin' for my brother."

"You will have to wait elsewhere" I informed her calmly. "I do not expect him back for several more days."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15:

"He does look a lot like Hoot."

I looked over at Susanna. We were both doing mending, sitting on the floor of my living room with the table pushed out of the way and Jack and Astyanax were playing with their trucks under the kitchen table. For his decision to limit his talking, my son had no such issues when it came to mimicking sounds . As he'd proven earlier when he'd chirped and Susanna had thought it was her strange fold up phone. I looked over at his curly bowed head now.

"I know" I answered softly. My lips moved. "I do not mind."

"I thought you were gonna rip Hoot's harpy a new one" Susanna mocked and I laughed quietly as I went back to my work. It was quiet and than Susanna stated: "Seriously, Annie, I've never seen you scary cold mad like that before."

"I do not mind if people think Hoot is my son's father." And I did not. I would never forget Astyanax's father. Not even with my last breath. And Astyanax would grow up hearing of him too. But Hoot loved my son with all the ease and openness of a good man and I saw the way he looked at Astyanax when he thought no one was watching. He loved my son like a son and there was a longing there in him for it. It made my heart break in a sweet way to know that and I held it close to my chest in pleasure. But - "She did not care if I was Astyanax's mother. Only that Hoot might be his father. As if she would snatch him away from me if he were."

"Ahhh" Susanna nodded and went back to her work with a smile. "Mama Bear protecting the baby bear."

From the kitchen I heard a roar and looked to see my son had reared up on his knees and curled his fingers to give us the 'bear' roar. It made me laugh and he grinned merrily back at me and than went back to his game with Jack. Next to me Susanna chuckled and shook her head.

"He really does have ears like a rabbit, doesn't he?" she asked and I smiled as I bent over my work. Having to admit that having 'glasses' made it much easier and my fingers did not get pricked as much as they had used to. My neck did not get sore either.

"Astyanax hears everything" I agreed comfortably. "He is a clever child."

"Does it bother you? Him not talking?" She asked it hesitantly, as if it would offend me but it did not and I gave her a smile as I shook my head.

"No" I looked over at my son as he and Jack had their cars collide. "I know he can. And when it is important he does. There is nothing wrong with his mind. So I will let him decide what needs to be said."

"You're just afraid he's going to have Hoot's horrible accent when he starts talking" Susanna teased and the thought, which had crossed my mind, had me laughing again. The doorknob turned as we were laughing and I looked over with a smile, expecting to see Berta here for her son. But the voice that came through was male and it was warning:

"They're laughing. That means they're plotting evil." It was a Hoot sentiment but it was Jeff's voice stating it and I was on my feet, fabric spilling out of my lap even if I had enough habit ingrained to keep the needle in my hand. Hoot stepped through the open door and his dark eyes found me immediately. And almost as immediately, I was across the room and in his arms. He lifted me off my feet and squeezed me tightly to him. I wound my arms just as tightly around his shoulders as he kissed me.

"What'd I tell you 'bout lockin' the door?" his voice was a mumble against my lips and I laughed at him.

"Shorty!" he was leaning down and catching Astyanax up with one arm while he held me still with the other. "How's my little man?" he greeted my son who was beaming and threw his own tiny arms around Hoot's neck. And I watched the look move in his dark eyes and watched the smile on his face go foolish.

"We missed you" I told him and the look he gave me was worth everything as he drew me up against him and kissed me again.

"You could at least move your huge as - butt out of the doorway" Jeff's voice came from behind. But it was laughing.

Susanna was standing up, folding the shirt she'd been sewing buttons onto. Again.

"Jefferson" she greeted him with a nod and even as wrapped around my own man as I was, I heard much in her voice. And in his when he nodded back and said her name.

"Susanna."

Than he intentionally hit the back of Hoot's head with one of the bags as he went past.

"Don't mind me. I'm just the one with the busted ribs. Let me do all the heavy lifting around here and bring the bags in."

"You think I'm not liftin'?" Hoot juggled Astyanax with one arm and my son laughed in delight at the jostling. Susanna gave me a smile.

"I'll catch up to you later" she winked and than was out the door. I looked up at Hoot. He shook his head at me. Not now, his eyes said. He'd answer me later. I leaned up to kiss him again. Because he always answered my questions. Because he did not mind. Because he still held me and my son. Because I had missed him.

His answering kiss told me the same. And than he laughed and bumped his forehead lightly against my son's. Astyanax chortled and wrapped both arms around his head. And I actually felt him soften. It melted my heart too.

"Missed havin' you around, bud" he told my son. "I went on walks an' there wasn't anybody to take with me."

My son sighed and rested the side of his head against Hoot's and something in my heart broke. To see them that way.

"Sorey" Astyanax told Hoot seriously before asking: "Now?"

"How 'bout after dinner?" Hoot suggested. "I wanna spend some time with your momma too."

Astyanax chortled. And winked! My son winked!

"Snoggin'" he nodded seriously and Hoot almost choked on his tongue. My eyes went wide in surprise and I shook my head at the half shocked, fully amused look Hoot shot me.

"I didn't say anything!" I protested my innocence. "I don't talk like that."

"BBC" Jeff explained walking back into the room and preemptively taking my son away from Hoot. Astyanax gurgled his approval and rested his head on the blond man's shoulder. Hoot's dark eyes narrowed.

"They talk about makin' out on the British news?" he sounded skeptical and Jeff shrugged.

"Sure" he answered in such a mild way that it was obvious it was not. He turned his attention on my son. For his own safety, I suspected. "Come on, munchkin. You can help me unpack my clothes. I just might have a surprise or two in there that I picked up while I was gone."

"Just what every woman wants to hear. That you picked up some funky 'surprises' in your dirty laundry" Hoot teased and Jeff shot him a look over the top of my son's head. Astyanax, excited by the prospect of presents, thumped Jeff's wide shoulder and pointed at the bedroom. Obedient, Jeff carried him in. Hoot looked down at me.

"Now where was I?" he asked, eyes darkening and full of light at the same time as he cupped my face in both of his hands.

"You were going to tell me about Jeff and Susanna" I prompted, eyebrows down to show I was serious. It might have held if he hadn't started to smile.

"Was I?" he drawled, starting to grin. And than he lowered his head and he kissed me.

I melted into him and for a very long time, it was all I knew.

----0000

It was good to be home.

Funny but he'd never considered wherever he was bunking down for the duration 'home' before. Hell, he hardly even considered the house he had in Louisiana 'home'. Which couldn't be a surprise considering how little time he spent there. But put one tall, slim woman and a little bright eyed boy in a sad little apartment in military housing and suddenly - there it was. Home.

And he liked the feel of it.

"You missed me." It was - easily - the twelfth or thirteenth time he'd said it to her and he stretched his long legs under the dining room table as she cleared away their dinner. He kept saying it because every time he did she would give him that smile of hers that was like one of her really good hugs and lean down and kiss him. Murmuring in that low voice of hers:

"Yes. I did."

It made him grin every time. And every time he grinned, her eyes filled up with light. Meander, spoiled with attention by the two men at the table beyond belief, was slurping up the last of his chocolate pudding. 'Instant' was apparently one of the modern wonders Andy was more than willing to incorporate into her life. Since he was using a spoon to get the mix to his mouth before he started slurping none of the adults in the room corrected his behavior. Way Hoot saw it, a kid should be able to be a kid. As long as said kid knew he was being allowed to be a kid and didn't try to turn being a kid into being a little wild critter. Meander tended to stay firmly in the 'little kid' area. He hardly ever went critter.

Jeff was stretched out at the table as well, his own long legs taking up the room under table that Hoot's weren't. Jeff, raised way too well for it, hardly ever stretched out at the table but - well, Hoot figured you had to rub off a bit on a guy that was practically your brother and besides, Andy's meal had been really good. And really filling. Hoot had, of course, avoided most of the green stuff and stuck with the meat but even the little bits of green stuff he'd eaten off Meander's plate when the boy's momma wasn't looking hadn't been all that bad really.

"Where did you get fresh fennel?" Jeff asked, alluding to the rabbit food, Hoot guessed and Andy chuckled as she stacked the dishes. They'd flipped a coin. It was Hoot's turn to wash them.

"There's a market in town. Every Sunday they have fresh fruit and vegetables from the country. I like going there." Her voice was softer when she said the last bit and Hoot and Jeff exchanged glances while she wasn't looking. A little bit of normacly for her.

"Kittens!" Meander volunteered and Hoot leaned over to wipe his mouth. Finding his hands getting batted away by smaller ones that were suddenly, somehow, covered in pudding. Andy chuckled again.

"They had kittens in one of the stalls" she elaborated the story just as a knock sounded at the door. Jeff, seeing Hoot's hands busy with Meander, stood up and started for it. Halfway there as Andy mildly stated:

"Your sister came by."

Jeff froze in mid-stride. Hoot's head came up and Meander used the opportunity to grab the paper towel he'd been using.

"Who's sister?" Jeff asked suspiciously. Still standing in the middle of the living room.

"Amy" Andy supplied helpfully and Jeff was, almost before the name finished leaving her lips, abandoning his post in the middle of the room and heading for the bedroom. Fast.

"Hey" Hoot protested and Jeff just shot him a glare and ducked into the room. Shutting the door behind him. Hoot listened carefully and thought he heard the lock clicking into place.

Coward.

He caught the paper towel away from Meander, who was waving it in what looked, to Hoot, a great deal like a surrender flag, and found the little kid had wiped off his own face, thank-you-very-much. The knock came at the door again.

Andy turned around to rest her back on the counter, dish towel in her hand and watched him. Hoot folded his hands over his stomach and settled back into his seat again. The knock at the door came a third time. Meander looked expectantly from one adult to the other.

"Norm!" the voice was loud enough to be heard through the cheap wood of the door. "I know you're in there! Get the damn door or I'll stay out here all night! You know I will!"

Hoot didn't answer. Andy, eyebrows raised slightly, didn't move. Meander started to chuckle and slipped under the table.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16:

Hoot did, eventually, get the door. He really had been intending on playing possum until Amy went away. Amy, knowing that with her conniving female mind, was just as stubborn as he was and had the lung capacity to hold out just as long as he did. Yelling included. Since no one had come to their doors on either side of the apartment, it could only be concluded that this happened often enough that no one bothered investigate it anymore. Or that the sound of an angry female drawl, screeching Hoot's name and various creative obscenities, tended to influence people toward the 'laying low' approach. Either way, at least no one apparently bothered call the MPs.

Too bad too, Hoot thought as he got up to get the door. He hadn't been intending to despite the fact that Andy had settled down at the table across from him with her cup of hot chocolate and was watching him with laughing eyes while she drank it. But Meander, still lurking under the table, had started to repeat in delighted mutters what Amy was yelling and frankly, no kid should know those kinds of words. So Hoot had gotten up.

No woman should know those kinds of words either, Hoot thought as he unlocked it and swung the door open. No sister of his at least. He knew he hadn't raised her that way.

Unless she'd been learning by example...

"'Bout fuckin' time ya got the damn door!" his little sister exploded at him. Stomping inside.

"Yeah, good ta see you too" Hoot leaned down and kissed her cheek before shutting and locking the door behind her. She sniffed.

"How long were you going to leave me out there anyway?" she asked but her voice was at least her 'indoor' voice. Hoot shrugged and wandered back toward the table.

"All night."

"Son of a bitch" his sister called him without much heat and Hoot raised his finger. Not correcting the statement.

"Kid in the room" he drawled his warning as he dropped back down into the seat and restretched his legs. Andy moved her own long legs to make room for him but her ankle brushed up against his. A gentle, soothing gesture and he relaxed. A little. Meander popped up from under the table to crawl into Hoot's lap. Amy watched the move with calculating eyes. Seeing the way her brother's face changed, softened as he helped the little fella up without thinking about it. The woman that had been so rude the other day was sitting at the table with snake eyes, calm and expressionless and unblinking over her coffee mug. Hoot got Meander situated and sighed.

"Whaddr you doin' here?" he asked his sister, sounding tired. She frowned and took off her jacket. Dropping it next to her purse on the couch. To buy herself time. He was more defensive than usual. Probably because of that woman sitting across from him. She knew her brother could be a stubborn son of a gun when he wanted to be. You had to approach him right.

"We're worried about you" she said, walking over to sit down at the table. The other woman didn't acknowledge her and she returned the favor. Focusing her attention on her big brother. "You've been weird over the phone."

"I have not" Hoot protested, eyebrows coming down. But there wasn't any anger or heat in his statement. Amy took it as a good sign.

"You didn't come for your birthday either" she started and watching his eyes roll.

"I hate havin' my birthday with ya'll" he stated flatly. "And you know it. Billy always gets drunk and ya'll always make life difficult by tryin' ta fix me up with every cheap floozy you can get your little mits on. Don't-" he warned before Amy's eyes even had a chance to shift away from him and toward the other woman. That last word held a dangerous tone and Amy decided to play it safe in favor of what she really wanted.

"We just want you to be happy" she protested and watched her brother's dark eyes roll again. The little boy in his lap laughed in a deep chesty chuckle and reached up to grab the tip of his nose. Hoot's face changed and he laughed as well, leaning down into the chubby little hands that began to pat at his cheeks. Shaved because that way he could kiss Andy longer without making her cheeks look like he'd attacked her with a hedgehog.

"I am happy" he told his sister and for once, he meant it. Really meant it, not just the 'happy' you were because you weren't sad. But happy, honestly happy. He lifted his face out of Meander's grasp and the little boy subsided when his mother cleared her throat. It made Amy pause too. Because her brother sounded happy. And not 'happy pills happy' the way Shawna was happy. But happy the way she hadn't heard him sound in a long time. She chewed on her lower lip and shot the woman on the other side of her a look from the corners of her eyes. The tall stranger was sitting just as calmly and mildly in her chair as she had been at the start of all this but there was a quiet, intimate smile on her lips. And she was watching the man playing with her son.

"You got anything to drink?" Amy stood up and walked over to help herself to the refrigerator. Buying time to regroup. Wondering... if maybe this couldn't wait until later.

"Just spit it out, Amy" Hoot suggested without rancor. "We all know the others always send you when they want something."

Amy opened her mouth to protest on principle alone and than shut it. Taking out a soda and turning around.

"Barbara needs you to sign for her house loan."

Hoot's dark eyebrows came down.

"Barb's already got a home loan" he drawled and his words were slow. "Mom signed for it."

Amy shifted the soda to the other hand and played with the tab on it without actually opening it.

"She did" she agreed, picking her way over the words carefully. "But now Bob wants to start a lawn care business and so they gotta refinance. But the bank says she needs a cosigner. They'll fax you all the forms" she offered helpfully.

Which did nothing to change her brother's quickly darkening countenance.

"I thought is was George" he stated and Amy looked down and made an annoyed noise.

"George left. Now she's with Bob. He works at the local garage."

Hoot's eyebrows were so low his dark eyes were in shadows.

"Which garage?" he asked and Amy shifted. Than opened her soda flippantly.

"If you were home more often, you'd know."

"Dale. He works for Dale" Hoot's voice had gotten accusing and he refused to rise to the bait of the familiar family complaint. "That rip-off down the road that employs all those losers." He started to cross his arms across his chest but Meander was in the way and instead, when he raised his hands, Meander's little ones reached up and took hold of them. Hoot wrapped his own much longer fingers around the kid's and his face relaxed as he looked into those curious eyes. Without looking at his sister, he stated:

"No."

"Norm" she protested. "You're the only one in the family that the bank will accept."

"No" he shook his head and his voice didn't rise.

"We're family!" she sounded shocked. And angry. Hoot looked at her and his eyes were flat.

"Yeah" he agreed as if it was unrelated.

"You can't say no" her voice was rising.

"I ain't gonna go inta debt so some waste ah human flesh with good hair can get my sister inta trouble over some half assed idea he's never gonna carry through with" Hoot snapped back.

"That's her decision!" Amy retaliated without really thinking about the words. Not for a moment disagreeing with his assessment of the man he'd never met and for Hoot that was more than enough. He snorted.

"No. Its mine" Hoot's voice was level again. "'Cause I ain't signin'."

"Look" Amy leaned forward, face pinched. "If you don't sign for her, Norm, she's just gonna go ta some loan shark. You know how she is. And she's just gonna get in all kinds ah trouble. At least if you sign for her we can keep her safe."

"Amy" his voice was tired and he sighed. "I've been tryin' ta keep her safe all my life. And she keeps jumpin' in front of cars. I can't make her house payments when she falls through. I'm not doin' it this time."

"Of course you can afford it, Norm. You ain't got anything' else yer spending it - " Amy's face changed even as she said it and her head swung around to look at the woman sitting so quietly across the table from her brother. Her eyes started to go large.

"I know you haven't bothered introduce yourself, but that's Andy" Hoot's voice was low and calm. Dangerous. "I'm gonna marry her."


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17:

For a moment, I thought the woman was going to fly across the room and gouge my eyes out. I was well acquainted with the type of furious anger that I saw flaring to life in her eyes. And, strangely enough, I was well acquainted with the actions of having to physically slap someone down when they lunged at me. Thankfully, it did not come to that but she did point a finger at me and it shook.

"You conniving bitch! How dare you try to steal my brother?!"

"Amy" Hoot stood up and his voice wasn't angry. It was simply firm. He held Astyanax in his arms. "If we've switched over to the bullshit section of this discussion, you're leavin'."

"When were ya gonna tell us?!" she demanded. Face growing red with her fury. Hoot shrugged.

"Afterwards" he drawled and I watched her go from red to white. I also watched as Hoot moved over to stand in front of me. As if he too, suspected the woman might throw herself at me in her anger.

"She's the reason I ain't on your life insurance policy anymore?!" she snapped it and Hoot gently settled Astyanax in my arms. My son was watching, large eyes curious but unconcerned. And I found it softened my heart. That my son felt safe and protected despite what might happen around him.

"Wondered when we'd get ta that" Hoot's voice was a slow, dry comment and his sister threw the can of soda at him.

"You bastard!"

Hoot had to drop his shoulder and he caught the can if not most of the liquid that had been in it. Jeff was going to be upset about cleaning it up. Relaxed he set it on the table next to him.

"Think we're done for tonight" he stated, practically laconic.

"Done? Done! We're not even half done!" she was practically screaming it as she stormed over to the couch and picked up her jacket and purse. She was so angry she was shaking. Her eyes were narrow darkness as she pointed a finger at her brother. "I'm gonna call everyone. An' they're gonna hear 'bout this. You just wait!"

Hoot turned his head to watch his sister storm out of the room and the door shut with shaking force. To their credit, no one yelled friendly obscenities the way they usually would have. Hoot stood still for a moment more, head cocked to listen and than he sighed. Rubbed the back of his neck.

"Welcome home" he muttered to himself.

I reached up to tug lightly on one of the pockets on the back of his jeans.

"We're getting married?" I asked in surprise.

His face changed when he looked down at me and I saw everything else fly out the window for him as he focused. He went down to his heels next to my chair.

"I'm sorry, baby. I meant ta ask right. Somethin' sweet and worth rememberin'. I didn't mean ta push you into anythin'."

I saw that it truly did bother him. According to the TV marriage arrangements were much more romantic and superfluous these days than I was used to. Involving a great deal of music and jewelry and no one ever seemed to discuss how many cows a girl was worth or whether the man could afford to house and care for her and any children that came from the union. I found the whole thing - impractical at worse, silly at best. But it seemed to be the tradition in this age. So I took his hands, so much larger than even my long ones and my son put his tiny hands over both of ours. I met those dark eyes of his.

"Of course, I want to be your wife" As if there had ever been any doubt. The thought made my heart feel light and foolish in my chest. He was a man that I could not have imagined before and, now, could not imagine not having in my life. He made my heart whole. But I tried to stay true to the practicalities. "You have already proved that you will put the care of my son and myself before yours. That you are being careful to provide for us. That you care for me and my child and will always treat us well. All that is left is that I come to you without anything of value, no wealth, no alliances. All I have is that I am the widow of a good man. As marriages go, I am the one that has little to offer."

His eyes were dark and they searched my face as I spoke. Gentle, he turned my long hands over in his and wrapped his fingers around both my hands and Astyanax's.

"I don't know" he drawled slowly and his eyes were solemn as they met mine. "I got a lotta needs. Things I expect in my marriage."

I nodded. Not worried but in agreement. One edge of his mouth twitched.

"You gonna share your bed with me insteada the couch once we're married?" he asked. Something in my chest fluttered and I pressed my lips together as I nodded solemnly.

"You gonna hug an' kiss me each and every time I haveta leave and each time I come back? And not mind when I drag you off to the bedroom to make up for lost time? You gonna promise to miss me when I'm gone?"

Again I nodded. Watching the light starting to spread in his dark eyes.

"You gonna tell all those other guys sniffin' around when I'm not here they can go take a long walk offa short pier?"

"With descriptive" I promised with a nod. His eyes left mine and he looked into my son's face. Those small eyes so very like his own.

"Whadda think, shorty?" his voice was solemn. "You're in this too. You gonna let me marry your momma?"

My son's eyes were just as solemn as his and than my little boy started to smile. It was slow and it spread like the sunrise until it filled his entire round face. His little hands against the palms of mine squeezed and than lifted to lay against Hoot's face.

"Yeah" he burbled. And his accent was the same as Hoot's.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18:

"I can't believe you went out the bathroom window" Hoot remarked and Jeff looked up from the German crossword puzzle he was working on. In pen.

"A good Delta knows all the routes into and out of a room" he answered back, voice lazy. "And it was your sister" he pointed out. Hoot gave one of those half 'what can you do?' shrugs and nodded.

Both of the men were ignoring the phone that was in the middle of the table between them. Someone was on the other end of its line and from the sounds of the shouting, they weren't happy. They hadn't been happy for several minutes in fact.

"So you're going to marry her. Finally" Jeff grunted and Hoot grinned.

"Just waitin' for the clearance to go through on her records' check. Doug's damn good at his job." Fact of life, the military paid attention to who its elite counter-terrorist unit married. Especially if the passport said she was from Turkey. Jeff looked at Hoot from under his brow.

"You heard our unit was getting transferred back State-side?"

"Might have" Hoot drawled slow, grin like the Cheshire cat and Jeff started to chuckle. Than he nudged the phone that was now simply screaming Hoot's birth name.

"North Carolina's not that far away from your family" he warned. "Whole lot closer than ."

"She'll be my wife by than" Hoot's eyes hardened though not at his friend. "They don't have to have passes onto base and if they can't play nice they don't get them. They'll come around though. Only a matter of time before they need me for somethin' else and realize that bein' sweet to my girl is the only way to get it." He reached out and picked up the phone just as it went quiet. "Ya done?" he asked and listened for a minute before chuckling. "Yeah and I love you too, Jules. Now you can tell Amy you tried, a'ight? Go help Sammy with his homework. Nothin's changin' here." He paused and than chuckled again. "Yeah, yeah. Finally found a woman willing to put up with me. Play your cards right and next time we get that way you might have some free babysitters. Yep. Talk to you later."

He hung up and Jeff glanced at his watch.

"She's getting shorter in yell time" he commented and Hoot chuckled as he pushed away from the table and dropped the phone back into its cradle.

"She's got kids now. Can't waste all her lung capacity on me anymore. 'Sides she's got a life of her own. Not as interested in trying to run mine anymore."

"Amy get to the airport all right?" Jeff asked and Hoot nodded as he got a Coke from the fridge.

"I was hopin' for the silent treatment but she knows I enjoy that so she just chewed my ear off all the way there. But I got her to her terminal okay. You know, we should talk to somebody about doin' a training session at that airport. Its way too easy to walk through." Another fact of life, Delta worried about a lot more than the average person because they'd seen more.

"She'll call when she gets home" Jeff soothed, scratching above his ear with the back of the pen before filling in another row of letters. Than his blue eyes lifted over the paper and one of his eyebrows cocked. "Gloria might have mentioned that you were over there swearing at her computer for a long time last night. Might have mentioned that she checked her computer's history folder and saw you were checking out airlines."

"Nosy" Hoot snorted but suddenly looked vaguely uncomfortable. Jeff set down his pen and the paper and folded his hands over his stomach. Calm and placid. Patient. Hoot shot him a dark glare. Looking, surprisingly Jeff realized, like Meander when he was seriously resisting something. It was in the way they used their chins and the dark set in their eyes.

"What?" Hoot sounded irritated.

"Nothing" Jeff decided not to share the observation with his friend who was apparently dealing with something. Pacified slightly Hoot exhaled and sat back down at the table.

"I want to do somethin' special for Andy. I want to propose right."

"Forgive me for growing up with only sisters" Jeff commented mildly. "But I didn't know there was a wrong way to propose to a woman."

Hoot ran a hand through his hair and snorted.

"She deserves somethin'. Here she was a queen an' all, livin' in a palace an' now she's living in a two room apartment with a coupla messy guys, wearin' my army jacket around instead of a fur coat when she gets cold."

"She sleeps with your jacket when you're gone" Jeff pointed out, surprising Hoot. He shrugged. Not thinking Andy would mind the revelation. "Its not about what she had, man. Its about you." He flicked the pen with accuracy so it bounced off his friend's forehead. "Any idiot can see how happy she is here. She's put on a little weight and her lips aren't tight the way they were when we met her in Troy. She even lets Meander out of her sight from time to time now. Hell, she's out shopping with Susanna right now and probably making all kinds of those clever comments of hers that make you question the common sense of things you always took for granted before. If you don't think she's happy here, you should ask her."

"I already did" Hoot rested his elbows and forearms on the table and wrapped his long hands around the Coke, almost making the can disappear. Jeff gave him a look. "She ripped me a new one" he admitted and Jeff started to laugh.

"You've given her hot running water, Hoot" the blond man finally commiserated. "Probably makes up for a lot of cold jewelry and under-cooked meat any day."

Both men paused. Well aware of Andy's love of the shower and the huge amounts of steam that always came out of the room afterward.

"Gonna need a big hot water heater in our new house" Hoot remarked and Jeff nodded absently.

"I don't know" Hoot stated after a minute. "I just wanna do right by her."

Jeff chuckled.

"Just get home safe each time you can. If I know her at all, its what's really important to her."


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19:

I stood where I had never thought I would stand before and inhaled the air. The foothills of Mount Ida. Less than a day from the fallen ruins of once noble Ilium. My son dozed, draped across Hoot's back and for just a moment I closed my eyes and stepped backward in my mind. To the last time I had been here. It somehow felt longer away than the thousands of years everyone counted. Another time, another life. I opened my eyes and looked at the man next to me. He was tall and dark, with long legs and large powerful hands. A warrior. His 'steed' was waiting behind us, a strange open air car that my son loved to ride in. A few days stubble covered his chin and he had scars on his body from his life. But I could not look at him and think that he belonged here. He was simply visiting, passing by. And I realized - I was too. For I belonged where he was now. I stepped over to him and tucked in against his chest and the arm he was not supporting my son with came around my waist and drew me close.

"I didn't make you sad, did I, baby?" his voice, that honey slow drawl and I heard the concern in the back of it. Never talkative I knew I had grown quiet. I shook my head against him. Content to be exactly as I was.

"No" I answered softly. Last night, on the beach overlooking the Aegean, he had again asked me to marry him. Offered me a ring, gone to his knee. Told me he loved me. My soul, in that quiet, perfect night, watched over by the stars had begun to sing. And it had not stopped since. "I am glad you brought us here."

"I thought it would make you happy" his voice was a gentle rumble in his chest where I was pressed against it.

"It does" I answered and it was true. I was happy to be here. But not for what the bards would sing of. There was something reassuring about standing here, with Hoot. Feeling the difference in who I was and what my life had become. It laid to rest the last of the fear that I would one day be pulled backward. I did not belong back there anymore. I belonged where I was and I felt it deep in me. Gentle, I lifted my head and pressed a kiss against Hoot's throat. Heard him hum his pleasure at my touch and I slipped my arms around his waist with a murmur of my own. For a very long time we stood that way.

"I want to adopt Meander" Hoot's voice was soft. "I don't want to take his Daddy's place, Andy. But I want us all to have the same name. I want to be his Daddy too."

'I know" I told him gently. Felt him tip his head to look down at me and I laughed quietly against him. "It is in your eyes every time you look at him. Did you think I would not notice what was happening between the two most important men in my life? Because it is in his eyes when he looks at you too." I relaxed into him and felt the way my words moved him. Hoot would never replace Hector. It was impossible because they were not the same man. But... it was not wrong of my son to have a man that loved him dearly call him 'my son'. There was room enough for past as well as present. For both of us. Turning my head, I whispered against his ear. "I would be pleased by that. To share a son with you."

His face turned and his nose brushed mine.

"You mind the thought of giving little Meander a couple brothers or sisters to keep track of?"

I could not help it. My lips smiled against his.

"I could be persuaded" I answered just as softly and felt as well as heard his chuckle when his mouth closed over mine. It was a very long time before he drew away and when he did his voice was a bit throaty.

"I do love you. You know that."

I raised my eyes to his and smiled. For I did. Astyanax began to wake, little arms tightening around his father's neck and I answered:

"I know."

"Good" Hoot grinned at me as he made the little boy transfer from his back to his arms and Astyanax curled up against his chest with a content smile. He had spent the day playing in soil that had known his touch thousands of years ago. But he, like me, was only a visitor here now. I had seen it in the way he turned to Hoot during our visit here. "Come on" practical, Hoot started back toward the 'jeep'. "I've got some drinks in the cooler in the back. We might want to stock up before we start our hike."

"Where are we going?" I asked as I walked comfortably next to him and settled onto the seat, legs dangling over the side. Finally having been convinced to try 'jeans'. And I caught Hoot's appreciative glance at my form as I did. Then he set Astyanax down in the back seat and his dark eyes rose and looked at me.

"I thought you might wanna go get Hector's ashes. I know they're somewhere near where ya found me. You lied to Neoptolemus."

It was such a surprise and so far from my thoughts that I simply blinked at him. There was neither pity or resentment in his dark eyes. Simply the calm offer. I pressed my lips together and held out my arms for him and he moved around the jeep to pull me close. I buried my face against his wide shoulder and the tears leaked from my closed eyelids. But it was not for sorrow that I cried.

I had so much to thank my new God for. So much.

"He belongs here." My voice was soft but sure. "This is his land. I will let him rest in it a while longer yet. He will not mind." Perhaps, one day, Astyanax might wish to return here. I would tell him where to look if he did. For both his father's hidden cave and the secret stash of Trojan gold I had hidden away so very, very long ago along with my Hector's sword and shield. But I did not need to have my husband's ashes near me anymore. His heart still was. That cave that had held my sorrow and tears and lost life for so long could remain untouched. I had taken what I needed from it already. I did not need to visit it now.

I raised my head and looked up at Hoot. Raised a hand to cup his cheek tenderly. Heart swelling inside for what he did to me.

"I love you" I told him and saw the way his eyes changed. Leaning up, I kissed him. Complete with what I had realized here. Ready for what was to come. "Take me home?" I asked. And we both knew that I did not mean the memories that lingered silent and soothed in this country I had learned to call 'foreign'.

The End (and I mean it this time! ;)


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